Elan Pt. 05 - Experience

Tall, Strong, and Experienced

----

Talos and Casiama walked through the lively main street of the town, the seventh they have crossed since leaving Aindarna behind. It was the winter solstice, a time normally reserved for feasting and celebration before huddling by warm fires for the upcoming cold months. Talos now had another year of age, having been born on the festive night thirty-three years ago in Evorus.

Casiama displayed just a hint of glee when he had told her. The pair shared the same name day, and the elf elucidated to him how blessed they were to share it with many of her divines.

Talos found himself skeptical of her words; the day was merely the marking of another year to the man. A night of looking back on all of your failures and accomplishments before striking out once again to discover more of each, having hopefully learned from the past.

The pair should have been carousing with the local townsfolk, sharing in their laughter and dance as they celebrated another successful harvest. They instead walked in the footsteps of havoc and woe. Thirteen random suicides. They didn't know these unfortunate people, but the pair knew that they hadn't likely deserved their fate. It seemed the rest of the world worked tirelessly to prove its ignorance as it declared the suicides the unfortunate-but-probable acts of destitute peasantry.

Talos had by now drawn a crude image of the girl he sought, Rayya, with soot and papyrus. Through each town, each grizzly act of suicide, someone nearby had pointed them in their next direction when he asked about the drawn girl. All signs pointed westward.

Perhaps she was going to Catriona, where Talos had dropped her off all those years ago...

~~

Talos and Rayya sat on one side of a large, oak table, across from a trio of aging sorceresses. Talos had brought Rayya to the fabled College of Catriona, thinking it the best possible place for her, for three reasons.

One, Rayya's naturally empathetic powers meant that she was magically attuned, which could allow her to become a powerful sorceress one day.

Two, Catriona was at the far edge of the continent, far away from her father the Marquis of Skymarch. They had been harried by his mercenaries for months now, unable to sleep soundly lest they be ambushed once more.

Three, and most importantly, the College of Catriona protected their own. No men were allowed inside its walls, and only sorceresses who study or have studied at the College could possibly enter. Talos held Rayya's hand as she shook, waiting for the sorceresses across the table to make their decision.

"Your daughter certainly has great potential, Varian," the sorceress to the right reassured nasally, addressing Talos with his pseudonym lest Rayya be tracked here. "Empathy like hers hasn't been seen around here in a decade, at least. We'd gladly welcome her, and I can promise we have a great School of Enchantment on our grounds."

Talos smiled, gripping Rayya's hand. "Thats... that's great. Thank you," he choked out, then cleared his throat.

"There's still the matter of coin, Varian," another sorceress spoke up coldly.

There always is, Talos thought to a nervously giggling Rayya.

"Tuition here at the College is no simple ask. And I'm afraid a man of your..." the hag looked Talos up and down, tutting once, "simple background would find it hard to pay it."

"How much could it possibly be?" Talos asked indignantly. The man had plenty of coin saved from his days as a mercenary, and no amount could be too high for Rayya.

"Sixty golden Imperials a year," the sorceress in the middle spoke up suddenly. "And we'll require the payment in full, for the first two years."

Talos' jaw dropped at the sum, refusing to believe that the College wasn't some intricate ploy at extortion rather than education. You could buy a row of townhouses on the waterfront for that.

"One-hundred and twenty Imperials..."

Rayya gripped his hand, reassuring him as well she could with a waivering voice and a smile.

"It's okay, Talos. I don't need to go here. We can... keep exploring, instead. We'll make it fun, I'm sure."

Talos shook his head, gazing at her hopelessly optimistic smile. He could drain his accounts in Evora, Tardia, and Catriona, he knew. It would take a few months to travel, of course...

Talos raised his sight to the three sorceresses. "I accept. But I don't have it all on me, right at the moment. I will need to travel to Redstone to retrieve half the sum. But the other half is here at the central bank I assure you, sorceress."

The woman smiled warmly from across the table. "Great. We'll accept her immediately, of course. If you want us to teleport you to Redstone-"

"No," Talos interjected. "That's alright. I'll walk."

The sorceress smiled in reply, then looked towards the young blonde girl. "Very well. Welcome to the College, Rayya."

~~

Talos brought a hand to his chin in the present and shrugged. Possible, he supposed.

--

Sigismund arrived in the noisy atmosphere of a celebrating Imperial town. It was the winter solstice, a night to drink and reminisce of another year gone by.

Sigismund had fifty years of age now, an amount that few of the celebrating peasants around him could ever hope to achieve. It didn't feel like much of an accomplishment, now, having just lost his lucrative contract with the Grey Suns Company. His career as security for a trading vessel had not even lasted half a year before he had been fired.

He tipped his mead glass to his lips, trying to savor its sweetness as he wallowed in his own despair, the happy songs of the revelers doing nothing for his mood. What was he to do now?

Sigismund had been right, of course. What self-respecting merchant company sends a transport into certain doom? The transport had been selected as bait by haughty chief-something-officers to draw out the pirates, and sailed alone with a guard half its intended size.

Sigismund did the job, though. He slaughtered the pirates as they boarded, twenty-four in all at last count. But as the transport returned to Rinoc in victory, Sigismund found himself furious with the Grey Suns' leadership. He barked furiously at them while the rotund man calling himself Leonard counted coins into his pouch before tearing up their contract.

Apparently, questioning your superiors didn't get you any favors with the Grey Suns Company. Perhaps it was the insults.

"This seat taken, old man?"

Sigismund lifted his eyes from his mead, and scanned the lively hall he sat in. The seat opposite him was perhaps the only one still left untaken. His eyes lifted to the cute girl in front of him, a short blonde-haired girl wearing an even shorter skirt but one shade darker than her skin. He offered the seat with an open palm before the maiden fell onto it with a thud, her drink sloshing violently as it hit the table. She was far too pretty to be seen sitting with a curmudgeon like himself, he thought. The girl smiled sweetly towards him as the notion passed his mind.

"Enjoying the festivities?" Sigismund asked, attempting to make conversation with his now table-mate.

"Ugh. These people are all so dirty, I swear. You think they'd at least find a chance to bathe for the biggest holiday of the year."

Sigismund smiled back, finding the jest endearing. "Now now, they can't help it. What with the doing nothing all day now that the harvest has been picked," he laughed, the cute girl responding with a somehow cuter giggle. Sigismund successfully stopped himself from giving her assets more than a quick glance as she sipped her mead carefully.

"It's just hard for a cute, lonely girl like me to find a proper man around these parts. You know what I mean?"

Huh. That was weird. Sigismund shook his head.

"I'm sorry miss, but I'm afraid I've never been a cute girl."

He found himself laughing at his own joke, a rare event. Even more perplexing was the girl responding similarly; Sigismund thought her to be sweet company, too fair for these parts. They both shared a silent moment of mead.

"How's a rich, young maid such as yourself find herself in this place any way?" he asked her, honestly wondering about his new drinking partner. She took a big gulp of her drink before responding, her sky blue eyes somehow glowing brighter.

"Already told ya, old man. I'm looking for my man. Know of any?" the girl winked at him.

Sigismund found himself getting uncomfortable, not knowing quite how to respond to the obvious flirtation. His large scar over his right eye should have frightened most girls away, his sullen demeanor handling the rest.

"One or two, sure. What's your man look like?"

"Oh... he's tall, of course. But not so tall that I couldn't reach his lips with mine, though. And strong, but not so strong that he rips my clothing when they're removed with haste," the woman responded, taking another gulp of mead before continuing, gazing into him.

"But most of all, he's experienced. But not so experienced that he has already given up on seeking pleasure when it knocks."

Sigismund raised the glass to his lips one last time, chugging the rest of its sweet contents down.

"Yeah. I know a guy."

--

Talos and Casiama had given up on finding an inn for the night, each of the establishments in town being completely booked for the festive occasion. They instead decided to order a mead from a small tavern, then promptly left said tavern to drink quietly, alone, and away from the raucous crowds.

It was both Casiama's and Talos' name day tonight, yet Talos did not feel any sort of magic because of it. He kicked a dislodged stone down the street, listening to it clatter about before the night grew silent once more.

"You know, all this shit has got me thinking. What'll you do after I die, Cass? Or when I get old?"

He hadn't really thought of it in the past three months. His time had been spent in wanderlust and in love, and his conscious hadn't afforded him any spare cycles to think of the bad. Yet, Casiama was still extremely young for an elf, only having twenty-nine years of age. She had at least two-hundred years of prime life still ahead of her, one which Talos wouldn't be around to see.

Casiama slapped him on the shoulder playfully, then spoke softly.

"Well, I suppose I'll just have to be in love with an old Talos. It won't be so bad," she smiled, then took a drink of her mead. "We could retire someplace quiet then, stop traveling. Maybe I could use my family's wealth to buy us a nice farm, and we could watch the sunset every day with none to stop us."

Her words were pleasantly whimsical, and Casiama's gaze was fixed on a far-off future that Talos wished would be true one day.

"And when I die?" he asked morosely. She slapped him again.

"You won't. 'Cause we're going to travel until we... find something to prevent that. Maybe we'll lock up a sorceress and force her to transmute your body each day," Casiama giggled playfully. Talos was glad for her optimism when his had all but fled days ago. She shifted her sight to him, green eyes fixed on his as she took a more serious tone.

"But if you do... I think we'll find each other again. When our energies get reused, in another life..." Casiama paused then bit her lip, before her eyebrows rose sharply in discovery.

"And wouldn't that be grand, Talos? We could find one another again! We could fall in love again. And maybe... maybe it will be earlier, next time. In a nicer part of the Lady's world."

"Maybe, Cass," Talos replied immediately. Her lively spirit emboldened him towards a more crude remark as he broke from his spell.

"But what if my energy's used for a horses life instead?" he jested. He didn't believe in the same pantheon that Casiama did, of course, but found it amusing to toy with her.

"Then I'll love a horse," she whispered without skipping a beat. Talos put a hand on his chin as if in contemplation, his eyes cast skyward.

"Or maybe I'll be a dragon?" he mused.

"And how you'd ravage me, dragon Talos," Casiama giggled, spilling a bit of her mead as she brought it to her lips. She brought her free hand to her mouth to clear it. "Although... that would be kind of difficult, huh? Do dragons even have... you-knows?"

Talos chugged down his mead, raising a finger as he gulped it down. "The wyvern I slayed in the Badlands had babies, so I'm pretty sure another must have fucked it at some point. I imagine dragons were similar."

Casiama giggled, thinking of something crudely salacious to herself before deciding not to share it. She set her drained mead glass to the side, then shifted to straddle Talos' lap and wrapped her arms around his neck. He, too, set his glass aside.

"Happy name day, Talos," she whispered as her thin lips fell on his.

--

No sooner than Sigismund had closed the door to his rented room that the cute, lustful girl jumped on him. She squeezed her legs around his waist and wrapped her arms around his neck, forcing him to hold her by her soft thighs as he made the trip to the bed. She kissed him, just barely reaching his lips, and rubbed her wet panties over the crotch of his leather pants. Her skirt was far too short for any decency in this position, after all.

Sigismund carefully tossed her on the soft feather bed as she yelped, giving him consent to play with her voluptuous form with a bit of roughness. He knelt on the bed atop her, careful not to tear her clothing as he lowered her skirt down her curvaceous legs, and unbuttoned her bodice to reveal two ample, jiggling breasts. He left her leather choker where it was, unsure if it could even be removed. It looked good on her, any way.

He rubbed two coarse fingers over her wettened panties before playing with her button. She squealed, mewled as his hands worked her with the touch of a man experienced. He carefully slid the slick panties down her creamy thighs, likely too careful for her as she kicked them away.

His fingers slid vertically over her sodden cunt before slipping inside, the woman moaning in lustful appreciation. He found his thumb playing with her nub as he finger-fucked her, the woman sobbing in anticipation, her body twitching in pleasure.

"Are you going to fuck me," she toyed with him between moans, "or just... uhhn... or just grope me, old man?" Her sky blue eyes shone up at him, practically commanding him to remove his clothes.

Perhaps they had.

Sigismund quickly unworked his belt buckle, the girl wiggling playfully on the bed. He couldn't help but stare at her eyes as he removed his boots, jacket, shirt, pants, and underpants with as much haste as he could.

"I'm waiting, old man," she smiled, parting her supple legs further before him. And she was, honestly, just waiting there, having made no move to work on Sigismund's own prior to contact. He didn't need the encouragement, anyway, his cock already hardened by the lewd sight before him.

His rough hands seemed a rather crude juxtaposition as they gripped the girl's silky thighs, his coarse beard a poor mate for her smooth lips. In a moment of hesitation he wondered how a maid so fair could be so salacious.

Then Sigismund pushed against her wetness, finding his cock a perfect pairing for her pussy.

"Mmm... your sword is so big," the girl moaned, squirming on his shaft. She wrapped her legs around his back, guiding him deeper into her. "Do you find my young sheath pleasing?"

Sigismund gulped almost audibly as he replied, his pillar now driven to the hilt. "Most uh, certainly, miss."

"Fuck me in earnest, old man. Show a naughty little maid how she should be treated," she commanded with sky blue eyes. And so he did.