Breaking the Rules Pt. 20

"You know I can't answer that unless you join. I will just say this, for myself, and yes I do realize how hard this will be to swallow after you've just had to flee my faction headquarters. But sometimes, people do things for no other reason than, it's the right thing to do."

Nuru was silent for a minute.

"Coming from anybody else, I'd call demonshit on such a statement. But if I know you at all, and I really want to believe you haven't changed that much, then I'm prepared to accept that answer at face value. I guess if you were hoping to salvage some hope of us having something in the future, then, mission accomplished."

"I don't mind telling you how relieved I am to hear that. I've been on the verge of a panic attack the last several days. Everything was spiraling so far out of control, and I didn't know what else to do. I almost came to you, out there at the feast, to warn you off about the wine, but I knew they'd know. And then I'd be in real trouble. You held off all by yourself, and now my honor remains intact."

"So that's why you ran."

She nodded.

"One last question. The most important. Are you listening?"

She took a deep breath. "Yes."

"Why did you name him Teenybear?"

"Because he's tiny, and cuddly, and furry, and ferocious like a bear!" she burst out laughing.

"But he gets so big."

"Still small for a bear."

Nuru giggled at the absolute ridiculousness of the situation.

"Admit it. You still like me," Zula said, grinning right along with him.

"Guilty as charged."

"I don't suppose you can tell me the method to your madness these last few months."

"Not really."

"I knew it! That woman that was with you, she was the brains all along."

"Sure, just a half-elf, that's why I can cast hellfire balls."

"Psh. You and I both know those are just evil-looking lanterns."

"So I was a little sloppy with my wording there. I COULD tell you. But..."

She sighed. "Faction business, right?"

"Basically."

"Just promise me you're not involved with Neeoka."

"All I want from Neeoka is an apology."

"You and half the world. Hang on.!Jikin Dabba Mai Tsarki!"

Mister Teenybear erupted in a flurry of movement, flattening a ghoul and chomping straight through the neck of another, letting its head roll off his back and bounce to the ground behind him.

"!Ikrast Iam Abbad Nikij!"

The dog shrank back down into a tiny ball and got stuck under a random branch lying on the ground, yipping in annoyance.

"Relax, mommy's coming!"

"Did you shrink him down too soon?" Nuru said. "Why didn't you wait until he gets back here?"

"It occurs to me that we might have to do this a lot. The longer he stays in big boy form, the more I have to feed him later. He's already going to eat me out of house and home. Isn't that right you little slobber monster!?"

She pulled him free of the branch with an exaggerated groan and put him back in the pack with a kiss on the nose, and he licked her hands and then settled in quietly with a grin almost bigger than his face.

The further they got from the city, the less and less they saw of ghouls. They intentionally steered clear of all landmarks and waypoints for this reason, and they both went quiet as the night wore on. For all her bluster, Zula was getting tired too, Nuru could tell. They both had so much to talk about, and they just didn't have the energy. Finally day broke, and they stopped to rest in relative safety. Somehow Nuru's eyelids blocked all the sunlight as they snapped shut, and he fell blissfully to sleep.

*****

"Mmm..." Zula said softly.

Nuru woke up with his arm around her, a hand cupping her breast. He quelled a moment of panic, thinking she'd wake up and break all his limbs and make him crawl to civilization. Instead, she shifted in her sleep, grinding her ass into his crotch, waking his penis from its saddle-sore slumber. His mouth dropped open in surprise, and he suppressed a groan. He took a deep breath, steadying himself at the rush of excitement he felt. He'd had a platonic crush on her, before even before his parents had died; as they'd both matured, he'd found his thoughts turning more and more explicit, starting with kissing her and devolving all the way into late-night lusty rolls in the haystacks around the farms surrounding Home Town. He hadn't known how she'd felt until he'd basically lost her; they'd taken their Classes at age eighteen, within days of each other, all members of the same class due to their birth dates. Nuru's turn had been one of the last, and Zula had finally opened up to him once the class had met for the final time to share their stat rolls and first quest results, and he'd been rejected for his choice of Bard, and nearly no MAG. Most of them he wouldn't have shared his secret plan with; the daring pact with a succubus, and the intentional dumping of his MAG to reduce the influence she could have on him. But Zula, he might have shared it with - had she been a little more forward. He wasn't sure what her reaction would have been, but he was having some difficulty in hindsight imagining that things would have turned out as well as they did. Or maybe they would have, and he wouldn't have had to go to prison, or been banished from Home Town even as long as he had been, it was hard to say. Nonetheless, he was certain she was one of the few he could have confessed to. And now here she was, literally within his grasp, breathing heavier with some pleasant dream he desperately wanted to believe was about him.

She moaned again, and Nuru nearly screamed as he felt her fingers dig into the back of his hand, pressing him further into her chest to massage her perky breasts, poorly concealed from his touch by her healer's robe. She shuddered herself awake, and Nuru blanched as she stretched her hands out above her head, and thrust her hips forward away from him. He was almost ready to try getting to his feet when she her head to the side to give him a sly smile.

"Well, good morning to you too," she said huskily, shifting her robe back into place.

"Good morning to me indeed," he chuckled at his own joke. "I suppose we'd better get moving."

"We could do that. Orrrrr... we could lie still and catch up on a few things."

"Hmm, like what?"

"Well, how's Jaheem doing these days? I went and risked my neck saving his life from a deadly poison. I have a bit of an interest in my patient outcome, of course."

"Oh, sure. He's doing well. Almost got hit by a meteor the other day, but I'm sure he'll be back to being a playground for young kids in no time."

"Hmm. How young, exactly? The same age we were when you told me I was really pretty?"

Nuru's stomach fluttered. He remembered that day very well; it had been a scene he'd called back up time and again in his harder days missing his parents. He might want a family again one day, and if it were with her- but he'd always shut down that line of thinking at that point. He'd been fully convinced that she'd hardly noticed him, after laughing and running away at that comment.

"...about that age, I guess," Nuru said.

"Hey. No sad faces. I know I wasn't good about showing gratitude for people doing difficult things back then. I was embarrassed that you paid so much attention to me. That whole year, anytime you'd look up, it was as if I was the only other person in the class. I didn't know how to deal with that; I was only just getting over boys being gross and stupid, you know."

"I know. We were kids. Young and stupid, both of us."

"But it was sweet, and I never forgot. And I've gotten better at saying 'thank you' to compliments."

Nuru opened his mouth to reply, but found Zula's lips on his own. Stunned to silence, it took him several moments to respond, and when he did, he restrained himself in an attempt not to spoil the moment. He laid his head back and just let himself be kissed, discovering that she was the kind of kisser that made him feel like her lips were embracing not just his own but his whole body, something he hadn't realized was possible. Heat rushed down from his head to his feet, making him gasp in her breath, tasting the air from her lungs and giving him the full power of her scent. He grunted and let his head fall back to the ground in a daze.

"See? That was a wonderful memory, that I have carried a long time, remembering that I missed my chance to give proper appreciation for the joy it brought me then and since. I swore to myself that if I ever got the chance, I would make it right. So thank you."

"Wow," Nuru said. "You're welcome. I've enjoyed that memory too."

"So that's one thing we can catch up on."

"Alright, you've convinced me there might be time for this," Nuru grinned. "What else would you like to catch up on?"

"I've been wondering..."

"Yes?"

"Oh, but I already discovered how soft and kissable your lips are, just now!"

He laughed, and she laughed, and his discovered his arm was around her waist again, holding her closely to him. She was straddling him now, feet rubbing against his leg idly as one hand roamed his chest and the other held her up, looking merrily down into his eyes.

"Now I'm embarrassed to admit, we girls talk among ourselves. There was a time when we got to talking about boys and... understand, we didn't mean anything by this, it was just a thing we thought women talked about sometimes. Because we figured boys talk about the size of breasts, which we all know is completely true. And naturally, girls would talk about the size of a boy's penis. I told all the girls I thought you were probably the biggest one. We got into a bit of a fight about that, because they thought one of the others - who was it that kept saying he was going to be a barbarian?"

"Khari."

"Right. You know he's dead now?"

"Shit. Already?"

"Yeah. Statistics, you know."

"I know, but... it feels different when you know the guy."

"Well, we all had him pegged as the biggest one out of all you boys. Biggest balls, maybe, in retrospect. Everybody but me; I always thought it was you who was the biggest. 'Grower, not a show-er', I believe the phrase goes."

"Good lord. You girls really talked about that?"

"Tell me the guys weren't even worse."

"I mean... yeah."

"So show me. Let me see if you're as big as I think you are."

"If the lady insists!" Nuru laughed.

"Do I have to insist? You've clearly been hard from the moment you woke up, you can't that tent you're pitching from me."

"That's because my codpiece has gone missing. But hey, if you wanna see the ugly side of me, I'll indulge you."

He pulled his pants down. Zula watched with deep concentration.

"Adisa's blooming terrrace, I can't take my eyes off of it. What do you mean ugly? What woman told you that? I'll show her ugly in a mirror. I'll put it there if I have to."

"Nobody has to say it. We men just know that our dicks are misshapen lumpy things that we have to distract you women from with shiny pretty things if we want to get them anywhere near you."

"Oh, no, not this one. I'm not afraid. See?"

She reached over and, just like that, she was stroking him, keeping him from getting even a little flaccid.

"I... I..." Nuru stuttered, feeling like a fish out of water.

"Honestly, this is a thing of beauty. It's a different standard of beauty, of course, but- let me just say, as a healer, that I've seen more than a few up close. And yours is by far the best. Of course, I wasn't helping them with a pressure build-up at the time," she winked at him. "And a few of them were even hard. I didn't complain, I even thanked them for the compliment. Like you, they were quite nervous about offending me, but I never did do this with any of them."

"Do whaaaaaaHAHAHA OH MY GOD!" Nuru squealed as Zula dipped down and took the head of his cock into her mouth, sucking gently.

She slurped wetly as she came back up.

"Adisa's sweet honeysuckle, you smell good," she purred.

"So do you," Nuru said, noticing a new scent on the air, something musky and moist.

In a flash, Zula was disrobed and rubbing against him, running her palms down his shaft and cupping his balls, then angling him up a bit to-

"Are you sur-" was all he got out before her mouth was greedily pressed against his.

"Yesssss," she hissed. "I have never been more sure of anything in my life. I get what I want, Nuru. I will not be shy about it any more. You saw my faction, what happens when I can be convinced to compromise who I am. You, me, you inside - this is what I want. And I want it now."

He just had to lift his hips the barest amount, and he felt himself slide home in her love canal, a heavenly sensation he'd imagined more than a few times, dick in hand, wishing it were her - nearly any part of her - wrapped around him instead. Hardly any of those fantasies had come close to this sensation, the feeling of her hot and ready, that fierce possessive look in her eyes, demanding that he go deeper, faster, and harder.

"Give me all of it," she commanded, lowering herself to meet his thrusts.

He wouldn't last. He knew it, and he felt sure that she knew it, with that statement.

"No more waiting," she confirmed. "Give me everything you have! I want it all!"

He was more than happy to oblige. He bounced between the ground and her thighs, slapping her ass cheeks with his balls until they contracted into a tight knot, ready to unleash the stream of sperm inside her that would either claim her, or she would use to claim him. His body clenched up, and the torrent welled up deep inside, rushing out of him and straight into-

*****

Nuru awoke with a start, heart pounding, sweat pouring from his body, his hand - his hand, firmly gripping Zula's breast as she nestled against him, sleeping just as she had in that oh-so-vivid dream. A dream that was too good to be just a dream.

(I wondered how it was she was naked almost instantly.)

/Oh, shut up, you did not. You had to go back through your goddamn perfect memory to find the contradiction./

(Alright, yes, I did.)

He took a deep breath, trying to bring his heartbeat back under control. Zula groaned, grinding her ass back against his groin, in a very familiar manner.

(Is this-)

But it wasn't exactly the same. He felt moisture on the front of his pants, where they were touching each other. Zula shifted, starting to reach up. A distant sound of hoofbeats made him jerk his hand back, sitting up to look. Someone was coming their way.

"Aww, do we have to go already?" Zula said, rubbing her eyes.

She looked down at his crotch, and back up at him. He thought he saw a moment of recognition, as if seeing something she remembered. Almost as if...

(Wait. Those things we said to each other... you couldn't possible have known all of that history between us. Were you connecting our dreams to each other!?)

/I told you I'm a good multitasker. Gods below, that was difficult. But so, so worth it./

Zula's mouth opened to ask a question, but he scrambled to his feet as the distant rider got closer, and Nuru got a glimpse of a white cloak.

"Time to go, if you're truly with me," he said.

He didn't think they were directly in the rider's path, but he didn't want to stay to find out.