A Dragon's Tale Ch. 51

"I'd love to come." The redhead smiled.

"I like to cum too." Lyra said with a mostly straight face.

Shara opened her mouth -- probably to tell her fellow wife off -- but Lyra beat her to the punch with good-natured malice in her eyes. "Careful Shar, or I might tell them about your firstreal kiss."

The amber-haired woman looked beside herself, but held her tongue.

Everyone laughed.

* * *

"Right there?" Rachel asked as she turned the large hand crank another fraction of an inch. It was connected to Alana's travel bow which was bent at almost full draw as the wood elf worked to time the release enchantment properly. They were on the Argo's lower deck with the travel bow around a main structural member and the bowstring on a hook that led to one of the Argo's smaller hand cranks. It was usually used to bring cargo up through the trap doors in the Argo's underside, but it was working very well for this too.

"Um, a hair more." The wood elf replied.

Rachel inched the crank just a bit more, drawing the bowstring back another fraction of an inch.

"Perfect!" Alana said. "Hold it right there for a few minutes."

Rachel did, which wasn't hard because the crank did almost all the work. Alana had her hands on the bow and her eyes closed. She was also doing that adorable thing she did when she was concentrating which made her nose scrunch up in the cutest way.

Rachel sighed.

"What?" Alana asked with her eyes still closed.

Rachel wanted to say 'you', but couldn't bring herself to. "Nothing."

Alana looked at her and smiled. "I feel the same way." She then closed her eyes and went back to concentrating.

Rachel felt her heart soar.

"Okay, all done." The wood elf said several minutes later. "You can let the crank down."

Rachel unwound the crank until the bow was relaxed, after which Alana deactivated it and held it up for inspection. "I can't believe how much easier and faster that was with a crank."

"It's done?"

Alana nodded. "I think so. I want to test it, but I really want Ethan to be here for that."

"I miss him too." The redhead said. "I'm really glad he went to help Talven and Salma, but I don't sleep as well without him here."

"Me either." The wood elf nodded. "Honestly, even when it's not my turn to sleep in his arms I feel better with him there."

"Yeah." Rachel smiled. "I miss that."

"Me too, but it's not so bad when you're there." Her best friend reached out and took her hand.

"Is it warm down here?" Rachel asked, suddenly feeling the summer heat more than she had been.

"A little." Alana gently brushed her thumb over the back of Rachel's hand as she replied.

The redhead let out a sigh at the simple, affectionate touch.

"But are you sure it's the weather?" The wood elf asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, something else could be causing a concentration of heat down here."

"Like what?"

Alana pursed her lips thoughtfully -- which was rather distracting -- before musing out loud. "Well, certain types of mages have been known to concentrate heat sometimes. It could be that."

"But I'm not moving any heat around."

The wood elf smiled. "Well, maybe it's subconscious. Maybe you're accidentally drawing heat in and it's made you warm enough to make the room warmer as well." A smile played around her lips as she added almost casually. "Though, to warm up a room of this size you would need to be more than warm; you'd need to be a bit..." She looked into her eyes. "...hot."

Rachel felt her brain freeze at the compliment. Her mouth opened but nothing came out. Alana thought she was 'hot'?

Truly?

"But it could just be the weather." Her friend teased.

"Maybe it's you." Rachel's mouth said quietly before her brain realized what was about to happen.

Alana beamed. "Has anyone ever told you that you are the sweetest friend ever?"

Rachel felt her cheeks burn in embarrassment as she shook her head.

"Well you are, and that shade of red looks good on your cheeks; you should wear it more." The wood elf said with a touch of good-natured malice. "I can help with that."

"I... I'm okay."

"Really? You don't want me to tell you that you're also incredibly kind, sweet, and the best friend a girl could ask for?"

Rachel's cheeks burned as her brain froze.

"Sorry." Alana said, taking her other hand in hers. "I didn't mean to make you freeze, I just wanted you to know what I think."

"Aww." The redhead managed to get out. Her eyes searched her best friend's face, scarcely believing what she had said. She was such a wonderful person. Alana was everything that she had proclaimed Rachel herself to be and so, so much more. And on top of all that she was so incredibly lovely. The chocolate brown hair, the hazel eyes, the cute ears that ended in points; all of her was amazing.

Especially her lips.

Rachel couldn't help but think of when Alana had kissed her cheek the previous night. It had been wonderful, sublime, nay, it had been transcendent. And she said that she wanted to kiss on the lips today. Rachel had felt Alana's lips on her cheek the previous night and it had been among the most wonderful sensations she'd ever felt.

"You're staring at my lips." The wood elf pointed out softly.

The redhead could do little more than nod.

"Did..." Alana seemed slightly hesitant as she said the next words. "Did you want to do more than look?" She licked her lips slightly.

Rachel felt herself nodding before she realized she had started to. She couldn't believe this was happening. She couldn't believe that Alana felt this way about her. It just seemed too good to be true. Wonderful things like this never happened, and when they did they didn't last. The only exception that she could think of was Ethan, but that was different. They were bonded and sheknew how devoted he was to her. Sheknew that he would never leave her.

But Alana...

Rachel obviously wasn't bonded to the wood elf, but she didn't think Alana would leave either.

"Rachel, what's wrong?" She asked with obvious concern in her tone.

"Um..." the redhead looked down, which actually didn't help a lot since Alana was a good six inches shorter than she was. Because of that and how close the wood elf was standing to her, instead of averting her eyes as she intended, she accidentally ended up looking right between the wood elf's small but shapely breasts. Alana's dress revealed almost no cleavage, but it didn't matter at this angle.

Rachel felt her cheeks get very warm.

Alana straightened up slightly, which had the effect of pushing her chest out and slightly expanding what the redhead could see. It seemed like she'd done that on purpose.

Rachel felt her cheeks get quite hot.

"I don't mind." Alana said softly, still holding both of Rachel's hands. "I don't mind if you, or Ethan or our fellow wives look, especially you."

"Especially me?"

Alana nodded. "So, you weren't there for this conversation -- it was before you married Ethan -- but Beth, Taloni, and I once talked about this with Ethan. We all agreed that while we loved being involved with each other in bed while Ethan was there, we weren't interested in each other that way when he wasn't there."

"Oh." Rachel tried to hide her disappointment that her friend wasn't interested in her that way. She hadn't even considered it much, but the idea that Alana wasn't interested in her that way made her heart sink. For some reason, she wanted her to be.

"Hey." Alana gently squeezed her hands. "There's one exception to that, at least for me."

"There is?" Rachel asked, her heart waiting with proverbial bated breath.

Her best friend nodded. "You."

Rachel swallowed hard as her heart began to swell, tempered only by the feeling that this was entirely too good to be true. "Really?"

"Yes." Alana said gently. "I enjoy sharing the bed with the others, and probably will with Ethan's future wives as well, but with you..." She got a smile on her face that reached deep into her hazel eyes. "It would be different with you. With you, it would be..." She cocked her head to one side, clearly searching for the right words.

"Would be...?" Rachel asked, scarcely daring to believe what she was hearing but also desperately wishing it was true.

"It would be..." The wood elf bit her lip and made a thoughtful frown. "I wish I could think of a better word than 'special', but it would definitely be that. It would be deeper, more meaningful, more... more something."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." Alana cocked her to the other side and smiled as if something had just occurred to her. "It would be more like it is with Ethan."

Rachel felt her eyes getting slightly moist as she smiled ear to ear. "Really?"

"Really." The wood elf nodded. "Not the same, but not dissimilar either."

The redhead felt like her heart was so full that it would burst.

"So when you're ready -- and I realize you aren't now -- but when you're ready, let me know." Alana continued. "When you are, I'll kiss you anywhere you like."

"Anywhere?" Rachel managed to squeak out as her brain did its best to freeze solid.

The wood elf nodded, got a sly smile on her succulent lips, and glanced at Rachel's hips for a moment before looking into her eyes and speaking with incredible sincerity. "Anywhere you want, any way you want, for as long as you want. I promise."

Rachel swallowed, her nether regions tingling slightly as she smiled widely enough to crack the Argo's walls. She swallowed hard and forced her brain to cooperate so she could respond. "Okay."

"Good." Alana beamed. "I promise I won't push you, but I thought you should know that I can't wait."

It took most of Rachel's considerable willpower to force her brain and mouth to work enough to formulate a response, but the effort was worth it for the reaction. "Me too."

The rapturous look on Alana's face made every bit of nervousness and anxiety disappear from Rachel's mind. The wood elf looked like Illuminar's Day had come early, she'd married Ethan again, and she was pregnant with another child again all at once. Okay, maybe that was an exaggeration, but she looked as happy as Rachel had ever seen her.

"And until then..." Alana looked at the redhead's lips and licked her own. "We're going to bed soon, right? So... so what if we..." She took a deep breath. "Do you want your goodnight kiss now?"

Rachel nodded mutely, scarcely able to believe that this was happening.

Finally.

The smile on Alana's face was very wide, as wide as the one on Rachel's own face and possibly even wider.

"I've never done this before." Rachel confessed, worried that it might not be a good kiss.

"You've kissed Ethan plenty." Alana pointed out.

"But he's not a woman."

Alana chuckled. "No, hedefinitely isn't."

Rachel chuckled as well.

"But it's the same, or at least almost the same." The wood elf added.

"Okay." Rachel couldn't keep the smile off her face as she stood there holding hands with Alana, the woman she was about to kiss. "You sure?"

She nodded, still grinning ear-to-ear. "I've never been more sure of anything." She cocked her head to one side. "Well, maybe marrying Ethan, but I'm just as sure about this."

"That's a lot of sure."

"It is."

Rachel leaned forward slightly and looked down at the much shorter wood elf. Alana stood on her tiptoes while still holding Rachel's hands and also leaned in. Rachel could feel the air from Alana's nostrils when she exhaled. Their lips were mere inches away from each other.

"You ready?" Alana asked breathlessly.

Rachel nodded.

Alana leaned in a bit more, then stopped with a chuckle. "I'm smiling too much to kiss."

Rachel chuckled slightly too, realizing that she had the same problem; she couldn't pucker her lips for the wideness of her smile. Both girls giggled nervously, then Alana let go of Rachel's hands and instead wrapped her arms around Rachel, pulling them close. The wood elf's entire front was pressed against the redhead's front. For want of anything else to do with her hands, Rachel wrapped her arms around Alana as well.

"Rachel?" Alana said with no small amount of breathiness in her voice.

"Yes?" The redhead replied almost equally breathlessly.

"Kiss me."

She did.

She didn't know how she got her body to function nor how her brain had let her, but it did. She leaned down, closing that last inch and gently pressing her lips to the most wonderful lips in the Ten Kingdoms. They were soft, feminine, and lovely. They were slightly moist and she tasted like... like... it was impossible to describe. Whatever the flavor was, it was the most wonderful thing that the redhead had ever tasted.

Alana moaned slightly and moved her lips against Rachel's, gently massaging and caressing them delicately and with great care. It wasn't an open-mouthed kiss, but it was incredibly open; Rachel couldfeel how her wonderful best friend felt about her. The emotion was all over the kiss and how Alana was giving everything to the kiss. Rachel gave no less, brief though the kiss was.

After only a few seconds, the kiss broke. The two women separated slightly and then leaned their foreheads against each other. Rachel caught herself licking her lips and made no effort to stop. Her eyelids fluttered open to see Alana doing the same.

"Wow." Rachel breathed.

"Yeah." Alana said dreamily.

"Mmm." Rachel sighed as her forehead leaned against the much shorter wood elf's forehead, their six-inch height difference making it slightly awkward, but not too bad.

"Uh-huh." Alana sighed again.

They stayed like that for several minutes, basking in the afterglow of their first kiss until Rachel heard a noise from behind her. She lifted her head and looked back to see Selene and Anthiel coming closer.

"As you were." The high elf said with an amused smile on her face.

"Don't mind us." Selene added. "We were just going to add a hammock to the ladies' area for Elthia."

"Selene, you could room with us again tonight." Alana suggested.

Rachel couldn't help but notice that her tone was entirely nonchalant and she also hadn't taken her arms from around her waist. Alana hadn't moved in response to the newcomers or acted like she was at all embarrassed to have been caught being so affectionate with her.

Rachel liked that.

She liked it a lot.

The Brazilian pursed her lips thoughtfully. "I suppose I could, but I've already done that once and don't want to make it a habit, even if Ethan isn't there."

"It might be rather tight in the ladies' area with five hammocks." Rachel pointed out, not letting go of Alana. "You would be welcome."

Selene waggled her head back and forth for a few moments before nodding. "Okay; that bed issuper comfortable and I think Thor liked it."

"It is, though I find myself thinking that the company is what makes it so comfortable." Alana replied, then glanced at Rachel while giving her a subtle squeeze.

The redhead blushed.

"Yes, you two certainly got very comfortable this morning." The Brazilian woman said with a touch of good-natured malice.

Rachel felt her cheeks grow warmer as Alana blushed. "Sorry, I didn't do it on purpose."

"We didn't do it on purpose." Rachel corrected, not willing to let Alana take all the blame.

"I'm not bothered." Selene said with a laugh, then pointed at her feminine body. "It's nothing I haven't seen before, not that I want to see it again."

Rachel laughed nervously.

Not long afterwards, all of Ethan's wives plus Selene and Thor filed into the captain's cabin. As before, Thor had to go around to everyone on the bed exploring and sniffing everyone and everything before he went back to Selene and snuggled up with her.

"Do you mind if I sleep here?" Kendra asked, indicating the space next to Selene.

"Go for it." The Brazilian woman gave her a thumbs up.

Rachel suppressed a smile. While the two warrior women obviously weren't attracted to each other romantically, they surely did enjoy each other's company.

Thor seemed momentarily upset at being jostled, then he got up and started sniffing Kendra's face very intently. The raven-haired woman scrunched up her face at the whiskers and tiny wet nose, but she didn't move and started smiling after a few seconds. Eventually, Thor completed his examination and then laid down so that his legs were touching Selene, but he had one of his little paws on Kendra's hand.

"I'm pinned." The dragon huntress announced with a wide smile as she looked at the kitten who didn't weigh two pounds yet, though he was growing quickly.

Everyone chuckled.

* * *

"Well, I think that's all we can reasonably do tonight." Sarah said as she surveyed the cleanup job. Everything that didn't have paint on it had been put in its proper place. The things that did have paint on them and weren't self-cleaning had been taken down to the well and rinsed off in the grass as well as they could. The paint on the floor had been scrubbed up, which was almost entirely Amy's doing since she was a maid and apparently quite good at it.

"Aye." Fiona nodded. "I'll be asking about a lock for our door in the morning. I'm not wanting this to happen again."

"That was a terrible thing Tia and Mia did; getting someone to lie for them like that." Sarah said while doing her best not to clench her jaw.

"Aye, but it's not the worst kind of lie." The copper-haired woman countered.

"What is?" Amy asked as she arranged her undamaged art supplies in a box.

"My Sean was always saying that there are three kinds of lies; there's lies, damned lies, and statistics. Lies are what you tell people you aren't close to you and they are bad, but damned lies are worse. Those are the lies you're telling to the people who are trusting ya."

"What about statistics?" Amy asked.

"Those are the lies the government is telling you." Fiona winked, then added. "Well, not the Lord Delmar's government, but most other ones." Her accent made 'lord' sound like 'lard' as usual.

"That's certainly true in Ivernia." Sarah slowly shook her head. "I don't know anyone who would trust Lord Farbrottan."

Mentioning Ivernia made Sarah think of something else too: her father and her betrothed. Lady Ekthros had promised to send them a letter explaining what had happened and offering to help them relocate to Karnas. However, Sarah somehow doubted that the 'lady' had actually done that. And if she hadn't...

Hmm.

"What's wrong Sarah?" Fiona asked.

"Well, I was just thinking about Rindrin and my father." The innkeeper's daughter said as she sat down on her bed.

"Who's Rindrin?" Amy asked.

"My betrothed. He lives in the same little outpost that my father does in central Ivernia."

"But, why are you in Karnas working in Lord Delmar's castle if your family and betrothed are in Ivernia?" Amy asked.

"It's... it's a long story." Sarah replied. "I thought someone was going to help them move here, but I recently realized that's not the case."

Sarah noticed the happy expression on Fiona's face falter a bit before the copper-haired woman spoke. "You're thinking that you should be going back, aren't ya?"

She hesitated. "Well, Iam betrothed so my place is with my future husband. I had thought that he might come here if someone was going to help him move, but since no one is..." She trailed off, not happy at all about the prospect of parting from Fiona, not to mention Amy. The copper-haired woman had helped her so much and she was such great company.

"You'll be leaving then, won't ya?"

"Not immediately, and probably not soon, but..." Sarah trailed off as her shoulders slumped. "I don't have the coin to make the journey, but I should when I do; he's my betrothed."

Sarah didn't add that there was another reason to go back which had just occurred to her. Ethan had promised to return to the inn at some point so that Selene could see her again. If he did return, she could see him again and ask to hear his side of the story. She guessed that his side would make a lot more sense and have the ring of truth to it. She also dearly wanted to see Selene again.