Before The Storm (Ch. 04)

Serena laughed, licking her lips as she pulled Sketch over towards Aliara's supplicating body. "Look at how eager she is for you, dear. All wet and wanton. Your warrior woman eager to feel you enter her for the first time. You're going to have to teach her all about pleasure."

"Well then," Sketch said with a laugh. "Let's start somewhere unexpected."

He knelt down behind Aliara's form and lowered his mouth down to her slit, letting his tongue snake out to run along it, as she shuddered, lifting one hand up before slamming a fist down on the metal floor, a sharp groan of pleasure shredded from her throat. "FUCK!" the giant woman shouted.

"You okay there, Ali?" Serena asked teasingly.

"My... my breath caught, and my body trembled, and this wave of euphoria just rolled over me like an ocean wave."

"You mean you orgasmed."

"Was that what that was?" she whimpered as Sketch's tongue pushed its way inside of her, making the tall woman squirm and writhe, unsure if she wanted to pull away or push her cunt further onto his face. "I've... I've only done that once before, when you were down my throat."

"Oh, sweety," Serena said, kneeling down next to Aliara. "It gets so much better." She leaned in and locked lips with the giant woman, who moaned into the princess's mouth, as they tangled tongues with one another.

Sketch found himself standing up as Aliara waggled her ass in his direction. His cock had swelled on its own, and when he tugged his pants down, he moved to place the tip of his shaft against her slit. He was going to take it slow, but Aliara had other things in mind and once he was beginning to slide into her, she thrust back hard to make him push the entire length inside of her.

He almost yelped in surprise, his breath catching a moment, as she was mercilessly snug around his cock, and he felt like if she wasn't as slick as she was, movement might have even been a touch painful, but instead, it felt like a perfect fit around his prick.

"Fucking hell," he wheezed.

"Like it was custom made for you, isn't it?"

"I... I can barely think straight..."

"It's okay, Miles... your first time with her's not to going to be long," Serena laughed. "You should see her face. She can't clamp her eyes shut any tighter. She wants it just as much as you do."

He was almost embarrassed by how little time it took him to orgasm, but the moment he started to release his seed inside of the Y'bari warrior, her entire body devolving into endless spasms and shakes before the two of them slumped, his cock softening inside of her, but her cunt still snug enough around him to keep him from slipping out, as Serena went to get a blanket, throwing it over the two of them even as she crawled underneath it to join them.

By the time they arrived at Nymar Gate, Helen had adjusted Aliara's face to make her look like a P'nox rather than a soldier Y'bara. She had given Aliara a metal bar piercing at the top of her nose between her eyes, and layered three orange-red streak tattoos across her face like bestial claw marks. Her hair had been let down and shaken into a bit of a wild state, but had also been tied back at the back of her head, to make her look more like she was part of the crew.

She wasn't the only one, as Serena had gone through some modifications as well, her hair having been dyed into a chocolate brown, all one consistent color, heavy makeup applied to her face but designed to look like it was also tattoos, everything they could to make her look nothing like the princess's mildly famous face.

Sketch himself tried his best to look as much as he normally did, making sure to throw on a long shirt covered in oil and grease, smudging some on his own face, to give that impression that he was always fixing something that had recently broken.

When the holovid sprung to life, he saw a familiar face staring back at him on the other side of the comlink. "Hey! Sketch! Long time no see! What brings you back this way?" The man's name was Ashe, and he had been one of the watch commanders at Nymar Gate for as long as Sketch had been moving cargo. He was always friendly - a little too friendly for Sketch's liking - but also tended not to pay too much attention to what The Praeteritus was carrying or where she was heading. "Do... do you have crew finally?"

"Mmmm. Nell's my new sys admin," he said, gesturing to Serena, who offered a bored wave, as if she'd rather be spending time with her code, "and that's Anna, my new P'Nox enforcer. Picked her up a few weeks back after some hillbilly redneck fucks decided they wanted to try and pirate my cargo instead of letting me do my damn job."

"You don't seem like the kind that would get rattled by a few dust pirates making empty threats."

"They tried to harpoon my ship, Ashe, and as tough as I am, I'm only one man, so I figured having a trained gun be part of the crew was long overdue."

"No disagreements here, Sketch. Your crew contracts include... side benefits?" he leered.

"Ashe, stop talking before she decides to come over there and give you a boot colonostopy."

"Yeah yeah yeah, what's your final destination this run?"

"Jamolti. Delivering a box of pilgrim ashes to their final destination as part of a columbarium for these Brookians."

"Ain't a whole lotta Brookians left these days."

"That's why they're paying so much to get their ashes with the rest of'em."

"I guess holy people's money spends like anybody else's," Ashe said. "A'right, you're cleared for jump. Safe travels friend."

The call cut off and all three of them let out a sigh of relief.

"I'm guessing that means The Barrow didn't show in a scan?" Serena asked.

"I told you that it wouldn't," Aliara replied.

"You never know until you test it," Sketch replied, as the ship moved to settle in the center of the ring, as the giant structure around them warmed up and then flung them across space. A few days and several jumps later, they found themselves in orbit around Jamolti, a tombworld covered in statues, graves, tombs and temple to deities, an entire planet built as a graveyard for a wide variety of races.

"I remember the Brookian columbarium being near the human royalty chambers, so put down close towards it, and we can just walk the distance between the two," Serena said, as Helen started to bring down the ship through the atmosphere.

"Robbing the dead's always been considered bad luck," Sketch grumbled as The Praeteritus found a landing zone not far from the Brookian structure, the human royalty section only a short walk away, and the whole sector didn't seem to have any other living souls in it. While the tombworld had some security on it, it tended to focus on the areas where more imperial wealth and garishness was centered.

"You need an Ashaka, otherwise you're never going to be able to fit in on the more populated worlds, Sketch," Serena sighed. "I don't like it either, but this is a starting place for us, okay?"

"Whose Ashaka will I be taking?"

"It belonged to a member of The Calm named Fury Rose," she said as the three of them walked down the gangplank onto the bleak, desolate stony surface of the planet.

"Oh," Sketch said, clenching his hand into a fist. "Well that might complicate things a little."

The three of them started to walk down a cleared footpath that would lead them to both the Brookian building and the human royal catacombs. "Why's that?"

"It's probably nothing."

"If it was nothing, you would've said nothing," Aliara scolded. "Out with it."

"I'm sure it's just a rumor."

"What was?"

"Well..." he started then stopped. They walked for at least a minute before he finally found the strength to say it. "Legend has it that Fury Rose was cursed."

"That's not funny, Miles."

"I'm not laughing, Serena," he countered. "Let's hope it's just a tall tale."

"Considering your luck?" Aliara chuckled. "It's probably an understatement..."