For a Song Pt. 01

I take off my jacket and hang it on a chair. A snap of my fingers gets a small flame that I hold to the candles. Never understood the finer bits of magecraft, but I do know how to spin noise like thread. I can see, at least. It is still candlelight flickering. That's always good for setting the mood. The rest of my time is spent clearing the center of the tent, then piling it high with everything soft my host owns. It's not that much. The crucible we are all forged in should not be a pleasant experience. Only though the turmoil of the hammer and anvil are we made the whole of selves. I just want to avoid a kink in my neck, but apparently that is the road to something greater than I, so I'll have to deal with it.

The worst part is how half I have to ass this. There is a theme I could go with, if I had more time. Bear skins, deer hides, bleached skulls and more candles, I could go full on frontiers savagery with this. But it's just the most basic things I can do. I don't even have any hides to lay on. It's simple linen and cotton strewn about. Not even a hunk of meat to present over a fire. Nothing to welcome back the warlord with other than my body. I contemplate more of my clothing stripped, although the general does enjoy doing the unwrapping. Now, all I have is just time to kill, waiting for the final dip of the sun over the horizon. Busy, busy, busy, but not for me.

I wait. I wait. And I wait some more, feeling the night air fully infuse the valley camp. It anything it's gotten wilder. More drinks, more bodies, more of the adrenaline coursing through the veins as the mind realizes how close the body was to its final cessation. I hear it in the muted colors beyond the tent. Blues and reds and yellows and pinks. I turn to rummaging through the delicates to keep me occupied. And even then, there's nothing in there frivolous or extravagant. Such a shame.

I go still once I hear the black start to creep through the other colors. And I smile at the flutter in my stomach. That is a dark thing, a creeping smothering color tinting all the colors of revelry to its shade of darkness. And it only comes back when that color is full on its march and out of view. I wait in vicious anticipation as the color climbs the hill for me. I stop rummaging. That would be quite rude. Instead, I have my pose on the floor, staring idly into the candle flame with almost bored intensity. My hips are cocked though. The general likes to look at those.

The general gives some of the weight of the color back to the night before stepping through. It's a bit grayer now, the pink and blue almost slipping through the cracks. I can still feel the weight of the general's entrance.

"Dumile," the general says, "Why am I not surprised?"

"Because you're smart, General Holyoke," I say, voice even. There are times of the sultry and the tempting. In a bit. Not now. Business before pleasure, although there is very little of the first.

Her weight, her incredible presence, dims the room with a wayward thought. The shadow dances longer, the shadows deeper, sending me into the depths of the earth, tucked away in some forgotten crypt. She grins and her teeth and straight, pure bone white. She's bleeding too, judging by the gauze peeking under her chainmail. Something on the neck, something on the thigh, something on the chest. I'm surprised that wasn't taken care of by her retainers. They certainly don't want her to bleed any more than she does.

With another thought, the weight of her being shifts and I am cast again in the normal dimness of a normal candle flame. She takes off her helm and carelessly tosses it to a corner, running her fingers through the short covering of stubble. It's always odd to see a Gargan with hair. The ones I know tend to keep the scalp bald, let the lines they all have really shine through. But they only go up to her eyes it seems, small circling spirals int the true abyss of her gaze. I roll over and pat a spot beside me. She takes off her gauntlets and tosses them with her helm. She must be exhausted.

The weight drops before me and I presented with a wide, well-defined back. The chain can't hide it. Nothing can. Her body is immense, sculpted from onyx, the darkest I think Gargan's can go. I slip into the routine she expects without a word between us. She raises her arms and I take the overcoat off. I take the chain off. I take the padding off. All done with surgical precision. She needs out of the cloth, and she needs to breathe again. From her chest, I'm surprised she doesn't get something larger. Without a wayward thought to my presence, she massages her breasts, moaning the soreness out with no care in the word. It sounds dense, like a stone slab hitting a tomb from a collapsing mausoleum.

"I don't understand why they want me in armor," she bemoans, "I told them I do my best sky clad."

"Which they is it this time?" I ask. I move to her shoulders. Tense and knots under my fingers, more muscle and bone slowly melting away. I trace the lines in her skin. Hers are all the circling swirls, whirlpools almost. I keep circling and circling and circling down into their center. And when I find that point, she makes a noise of pure delight.

"The war council. Don Quiney's boys. Prudes, all of them. Tell me you wouldn't be intimidated if you saw me with my scythe, stark naked, rushing you."

"Frankly, I'm intimidated by you now."

"Careful. That silver tongue can lead you to some very dangerous places."

I make her moan again and she glances back. Something drops in me as I stare into the abyss staring at me. It is dark and shining and infinite. And it's gone. Back to easing the tension of her body in slow kneads and rolls. I peak over her shoulder and watch her work. She knows I am looking. It's the only reason she lifts them both and drops them in such hypnotic ways. Heavy, they always look so heavy. I hope I get to hold them for her at some point. She has such a weighty burden to carry.

All of Eliza is covered in scars. The swirling whirlpools of off colored skin dance between the strike throughs of steel bits. Her back is covered in them, mostly arrow wounds if I were to guess. I think there's a burn just below her neck, a small one, almost turning her dark slate to moonlight silver. I peak over again, tracing the hatchet work tapestry. A massive one on her left breast, cutting out the nipple in a jagged cross. That thing responsible deserves the worst fate imaginable. It could only be jealousy of the most corrupted soul. At their prime, I doubt there was a contender for a better set alive in the past century. Even marred just brings her down to the top ten easy.

The scars crawl up her neck and I keep the shapes going there. she tenses a moment. There are sensitive things on the neck, but she is in a place where they can be sensitive with no recourse. It still takes her a moment to realize that. I take my hands back to her shoulders. She relaxes as I work the knots out. It appears that I will be doing this for the next while.

"Do you want me to take care of those," I whisper, tracing my hands over her bandages. I feel their heat even now, her body working to bring her back in line over what it should be.

"I'm surprised you didn't let the medics see to you," I continue. I find the part in her flesh with a gentle prod. She hisses and sighs once the pain slips into something a little more pleasant.

"I didn't want the witches to mess them up," she sighs. She stops moving her breasts. They are full and heavy and bouncing with the remnants of her massage. I watch them. I can't watch anything else.

"More scars?"

"More scars. Those are special ones. Hell of a fight. The bastard that did all that earned his mark on my body. I wanted to show them to you."

She's smiling and I was not lying about being intimidated. It is an odd sort to speak of such pain with such pride. And its earnest, that darkness in her lit up in the same streaky starlight as our shared sky. At least, I have her front to worship now. More muscles, deep lines in her abs, the scars on her breast, the complete and utter disappointment that she is still wearing her trousers. The lines, the scars, the muscles, all continue to the very base of her being. I have to stop at the halfway point. That is still so much though. She is taller than me, broader than me, crushing down on me. I move my hands, but she makes me put them down. She has to be the one. They are hers and hers alone.

Her hands slowly unwind the sticking gauze, peeling off in thin layers. Her hands work well, delicate and nimble, despite the rest of her. The bandages pool a loose heap until they are all gone. Eliza is bare before me, finally back to her best as she says.

And it is beautiful. A mountain with cliffs blasted away. A range with gaps scoured from the whole. A monument with missing limbs and cracked paint. The wounds are still open, still weeping crimson in syrupy beads.

"Rapier?" I ask. They don't quite match, but I want to see her smile as she corrects me.

"Close. It was a tuck. That was his final mistake. When he got me, he over penetrated and got too close with that," she says, hands idling over the wound. Her knuckles are clenched, looking back into the memory.

"The thigh was from his lucerne. That was tough to get through. But I did. Broke it in two. Down to splinters. I think I even dinged someone with the head when I kicked it away. And the neck was when the bastard dismounted me."

"What was his name?"

"No clue. Never shouted it in some bastard scream of defiance. Just kept quiet. Barely even got a grunt out of him."

She stands and eclipses me in her darkness. Muscles and wounds and scars and crushing strength on my poor frail body. She unstrings her trousers, slowly working them down. I don't even try to hide my absolute joy at her finally made completely bare for me. It's a quick, surgical motion, before that too joins the heap of discarded useless civility. More lines, more scars, more endless strength from her to crush and smother and destroy. She is bleeding for me, pride in her strength against the world. She bled for the world and the world reward her with death and pain against her. I am her prize held here in simple awe. And she is smiling, manic and proud and riding a high that can never be matched with a dull life picking stones. She is here, the other side of a war, the victor's side.

"I can make them scar for you," I say, eyes never moving from the cuts. She wants me to look. So, I do. The cuts sit near some other areas I also want to look at. It's close enough for me.

"No. They will have their time for that. I don't need anything for them."

The pride in her voice turns sultry as once again, she turns to some memory of conquest. A man broken out in the field, and she came back whole, to a caring soul that doesn't know pain. I stare at her legs, the tense and release in her thighs. She's getting excited. I'm getting excited, even as she just stands here, letting me admire her. Small movements of control, twitches almost lost to eh dance of shadows. I continue to stare with no shame, no appeal to common decency. We are here on the road to something bestial. I don't know why we aren't further along. Looking is nice, but we still have so far to go.

I idly stretch and move, regretting my choice to let her unwrap me. I'm getting a bit impatient, as it were. She seems to be getting the same way, judging by the fact that she joins me back on the floor, spine straight and even, jutting her chest so tantalizingly close. I could just reach out and grab them, trying to wrestle her to the ground to get the final act started. I would lose, of course. And she would take from me whatever she wants from me as I desperately try to have some say in the matter. But I don't. I have learned the routine.

The darkness is back in her, drawing me in with something cold. Her hands move before I can pull myself free. They come to my own shoulders. She is strong. It's impossible for her to be anything else with the way her body has been forged. I am a rain drop in a river, complete unable to make my course change against the might of the whole. And all it wants is a moment spent closer.

"You look pale," she whispers.

"Had a big day. Lot of bodies to go through."

"Undoing the work of my master."

"Not how I think of it. I just paint pictures with noise, letting the thoughts and feelings come down into something a bit more musical. And do you really want to chew through that many people for this."

"No, no. Not what I meant. Cout is an odd figure to serve. Wishing for the final release, but still dreading it. Endless pursuit of the greatest sorrow. Thank you. I don't know how many more we would have lost if you weren't here."

She's smiling again, looking at me in the same awe I give her. Her eyes are wide, and I don't see the bottom of her soul. I lean forward and plant my lips on her. Cold, she tastes cold, like mountain streams filled with the first snow melt. Surprisingly timid, despite her size. We are leaving her territory and coming into mine. No more death, no more pain, the joy and warmth of another body, seeking pleasure instead of pain. Alien to her in every way, but always welcome. It just takes a moment for the body to change the response. I am good at pulling the new response.

She kisses me back with the ager touch of her tongue. Blood lust has given way to simple, actual lust. Just as violent, just as immense, even if it takes a moment to get everything where it was supposed to be. Our hands sit silent by our sides. There is just the lips and tongue and everything there. It all collapses there and nowhere else.

A hand goes to my chest and the barrier is broken down between us. I let the current wash over me. I am on the floor again. I don't remember the motion that got me there, but I have some ideas as to how it happened. I have a chest to attend to now. Still cold, gravestone cold, perking up the senses like a crisp autumn breeze. It's sharp. Her softness is sharp, cutting into me as her bulk crushes my sight. I miss her lips. Those were nice too. But I have tits to kiss and lick and nip at. I wanted to get to those after a detour to her chin, her neck, her collar. But this is nice. I have round shapes to move, if I could. There is another set of hands on my wrists, pinning me down. They move me like a marionette until they are over my head. I'm helpless. How terrible. I go back to the one good nipple and bite. That gets a fun noise at least.

"What did I say about the silver tongue," Eliza purrs.

"Those were my teeth. This is what my tongue can do," I murmur through soft flesh.

I pull another fun noise from her. She can go deep, deeper than bedrock tombs and cavern graves when she likes what I do to her. And she lets the rumbling noise from her pleasure go deeper than that.

"Now," I sigh, nestling myself in her cleavage, "What sort of trouble do you have in mind? I have some ideas, but I can't really do much right now."

"I don't want you to do anything, really. Just stay there for bit longer. I have ideas for that tongue."

I am excited to see them. I really am. I hope they are the same as my ideas, because my ideas are genius, and everyone should follow them. IN the deep shadow blocking out the candlelight, I think I am right. The weight is gone, after one final probing kiss against me. I trail down her neck, her collar, her chest, and finally to her stomach. A vast expanse of hard muscles and deep ridges, rising and falling with her breath, carrying her heartbeat. I want to touch them, but my hands are still tied. I slip down even more, coming down over her hips, more of her heartbeat, and finally, I get some heat from her as she rolls up my body. More of her traveling up my stomach, my chest, my neck. I am proven right. There is her, towering over me with heat and excitement and raw need. Her excitement is weeping from her in slick beads down her thigh. This is her idea, but I think I am the one that came up with it.

"Eat," she commands. I crane my neck up and let her settle down into me, on her knees.

My tongue dances on her and I being the song I have been aching to play all day long. All the sorrow, all the pain, all the misery suddenly disappears. Two bodies, two people closed off, dancing together in the slightest flicker of a candle. She hisses and forgets that she is pinning my hands. They go back to her chest, and I am free to touch and grope and wander.

They go right to her stomach, and this was what I was waiting for. They trace the lines, feel them flex, feel them quake and clench. I feel the same twitches over my tongue. And the noises she makes are deafening, deep down rumbling from earthquakes and landslides down her body and into me. My skull rattles down into dust. Her thighs threaten to crush my head. Not a bad way to go, really. Not the best, but a hell of a story at least when I meet Cout again. He'd get a kick out of it.

The heat of her core overtakes the chill of her skin as more and more lavishing touches send twitches and quakes through her immense body. There is so much to play with, so many muscles working in tandem to react to my one. It is nimble and darting, finding the practiced spots and patterns I have burned into my memory. Such a simple instrument, she can be. Eliza likes simple motions, never going more complicated than a circle. And she howls when I take it the other direction. A chorus from one, a reverberating string pluck by the sky. She is the hollow carved in wood for a symphony. I am the bow along the strings, making her sing. I take the black form her being and paint her with more colors. I take the fleeting pink and yellow and pour them into her. I slip the blue and red over her, playing with the lips and folds and spots that send her writhing. I feel my skull start to crack under her thighs in delightful shatter. I hope this ends with a concussion. That would also be a fun little surprise when I sink into the shadows.

Her climax comes and I do not expect it. I don't think she expects it either, from the surprised yelp she gives me. It's still collapsing, still struggling and choking. I can't breathe. I don't really want to breathe. It's fun to draw it out more, let her little death grow into something momentous. Her release splashes on my chin, my cheeks, my neck, showering me with wonderful affection. I can't help but laugh, leveraging myself up and free, breathing clean air once again as she still tries down into dust and ash. I prop my elbows against her thighs, just so I can still take sips of breath. Her head is back, muscles tight, hands digging into her breasts. They'll leave marks. She'll have little streaks of grip on her skin. It is only skin deep, but I have marked her in the same way as steel and rust.

I prop myself up, an easy smile playing across my lips as she comes down. A long, low sigh lets out a puff of fog. It is colder in here. I almost didn't notice. I am still warm, nestled in muscles and bones and endless strength.

"Again," she says, without missing a beat.

I see no reason to disobey. I have to though, to my utter dismay. She pulls away from me, swinging a tree trunk thigh up and over, only to replace it with the other. I now have a wonderful view of her back, the swell of her ass, the lines of her definition and scar. Also good. Also incredible. Also captivating with incredible weight pinning me to the earth.

She tears open my belt and adds it to the discard pile. The avalanche has finally broken free and there is nothing I can do to stop its crash. I have my duties to attend to. So, I will. I crane my neck again and start the dance of my dangerous tongue.

"Every time," she stutters through the pleasure, "I think I know how big it is. I remember it. And I always fail."