Kiravi's Travelogue Ch. 05

Serina wailed into my hand, her slippery walls clenching against me so hard I nearly couldn't move inside of her, and my attention was drawn back to my Oracle. My conquest.

My partner? My woman, maybe?

I glanced down, suddenly realizing my foolish idiocy, compounded by beer and lust: Serina's skin was glowing like the hot coals beside us, her eyes burning brighter than the dying fire. She would lose all control soon, explode all over my manhood buried up to the root inside of her, and who knew what would happen next? I cursed myself for a fool, but wasn't that the reason I was here?

"Control it, Serina, keep it inside," I grunted, hoping beyond hope that she wouldn't blow up the whole camp again. The other option was to stop, and neither of us was willing to do that, "Focus, you have to focus," I tried to coach her like I'd been coached a decade before.

She whimpered into my hand but nodded ever so slightly and squeezed her eyes shut.

I ignored the breathy moans and animal grunts from the other side of the fire. I ignored the rising, crashing feeling swelling behind my manhood, the animal desire to rut until I'd exploded, my perverse curiosity needing to know if Serina could find her release without completely upending my understanding of magic. So I clasped my hand even more tightly over her mouth, my other hand squeezing tightly against her perfectly plump hips.

Her magic swelled as a scream bubbled deep in her throat, trapped only by the calloused skin of my hand. I was trapped between two fires now -- one of thornwood and creosote, the other of magic and lust -- but there was no stopping us now. I felt my own release crashing towards me, inevitable, replacing everything else in my mind with pure pleasure.

I fought it back for just a little longer, biting my cheek but feeling myself overwhelmed by the sound of flesh slapping on flesh, by the humming of Serina's muffled cries, by the perfectly tight and slick walls caressing and squeezing me.

"Focus, Serina, focus it inside," I tried to tell her, to keep her from overwhelming us again, "Let it flow from your soul, but keep it inside!"

It was happening. I didn't care about being discovered then; all I craved was release and to survive whatever was brewing inside Serina. The familiar tightening rushed through me, my muscles burning, hand clenched tightly in the soft flesh of Serina's ass, every fiber of my being focused on pounding into my mate. My cock twitched, jumped, balls tightening, and I looked down in lustful terror as Serina exploded.

She shrieked into my hand as I growled out my bursting climax, filling her again with my seed, and she exploded. Her skin flared bright, her eyes twin green suns that wept sparks of raw emerald magic, but her explosion of pleasure and magic mostly rebounded inwards. I could see her muscles clench, her back arch, the fire of her strange magic burn along her veins, feel her fill her lungs again, and wail her release into my skin.

Then, spilling from her conduit, pooling in her aching womb, the explosion of her power crashed into and over me.

It raced up my bursting, throbbing cock, overwhelming my unprepared and utterly open mind in an instant. Lightning and noise filled my mind, my eyes, my entire world, and I roared in fear and lust and power all at once. Her rush of energy found my conduit, my magic, swirled and combined with it before rushing into every corner of my body. Muscles seizing and failing, throat raw, my climax started all over again, filling Serina with another rush of my seed. I felt myself lose my grip on her nubile body, tumbling backward from on my knees, still bursting with lust and magic. Through the magic bursting from my eyes, I saw long ropes of my seed, glowing either from the firelight or Serina's magic, arc away from me to land up along Serina's arched back. I tried to do something, anything, to stay upright, to regain control of myself, but I could do little more than crouch there, half-collapsed, as I painted my mate's back with one impossible burst after another. It streaked along her shoulder blades, splattered into her hair, pooled in the perfect groove of muscle along her spine, coated her trembling, plump ass, and finally, finally, I was spent.

A sound other than the blistering howl of magic made it through to my consciousness, and I couldn't help but look over. Leotie and her Orgos certainly saw us now, eyes wide with awe for just a moment before he threw his head back and roared, pounding deep inside her to fill her. Leotie's sandstone eyes met mine as she felt his seed rush into her and her own ecstasy crashed over her. Her face screwed up, and she mewled, but her eyes never closed, and they never left mine. Her sweaty, muscular body seemed to arc towards mine, even as another male rutted her.

But the moment passed. Serina had somehow recovered, trying to clean herself with an old blanket as her eyes slowly changed from blue-green to red-orange. I scrabbled over, helping her, no words passing between any of us for long moments, just four throats panting and the crackle of the fire.

"I...I don't know what I did." Serina whispered.

"It's alright, darling," I cooed back to her, "You were amazing."

"I want this, Kiravi," she looked at me, eyes burning, twisted around on her side with the glow of the fire reflecting in the sheen of sweat on her curves. "I need you. I want you. You've done so much for me, showed me, and taught me so many things." She paused as I settled down with her, and we wrapped our limbs around each other. "I want more. I don't want this journey to end. I have to know what happened to me, and I want to discover it with you."

I meant the next words I spoke, dear readers. They were the truth. But, they were only a part of the truth. Think what you will, "I'll stay with you, darling, for as long as it takes. You make me happy," I cooed, stroked her cheek, and a tear sprang from her eye to fall across her shy and pleased smile, "And you terrify me. I'll stay with you and guide you."

"And protect me?"

"Aye, darling, and protect you. Now hush and go to sleep; you must be exhausted from...whatever you did."

She nodded, and when I felt her head against my naked chest, I risked a glance across the fire. The other two were gone, though, hidden by shadows, and I thought about the lie of omission I'd just told. Serina did make me happy, and I did want to stay with her, but another did, too. Serina was growing more and more interesting, and her magic sincerely stoked my curiosity, but could I be this guardian and mate that she thought she wanted? You should know by now, dear readers, how much of a selfish bastard I could be in my youth, and I doubted that our paths could remain entwined forever.

Serina thrilled and terrified me and certainly pleased me, and I truly wanted to make her happy, but now I wanted Leotie too, just as badly. I was young, and a fool, and knew pursuing both would be a disaster, but I had never been known for my wisdom or self-control. With the last wild sparks of magic fading from my mind, I drifted into sleep and dreamed of eyes the color of sandstone and of the woman nestled in my arms. I was a fool, but, for the moment, a happy one.

***

I dreamed that night, safe in Kiravi's arms, of things that made no sense to me. Visions, dark and fetid, curled in my unconscious thoughts, despite the ecstasy I'd just felt. I wish I'd understood them, then, and saved us so much pain and despair.

The figure wrinkled its narrow, hooked nose as it rounded another bend of the track and spotted the remnants of the battlefield. The filthy beasts of the Ketza had carried off most of the slain llamas, but some of the stink remained. Foxes and coyotes had scrabbled at the rock-covered graves but hadn't been strong enough to shift the stones and settled on fighting the vultures and ravens for the last few bones scattered either side of the track.

Its hands twitched through the air from beneath heavy robes, tracing complex sigils as the figure worked its magic, "Ah," it muttered, "That fool attacked my Prize. Good for me that the Prize can defend itself." The spell continued, faint wisps of purplish magic drifting away from its thin hands to settle amongst the rocks. It squatted down, running hands through the blood-caked dirt, "And it has friends. Interesting," it tasted a pinch of dust, "I'll take the Prize before they destroy themselves."

It turned to the thing that had been following it, so still that it blended into the night even though it was nearly three hands taller than the speaking figure and twice as broad. Neither spoke but, with a gesture, the smaller figure waved the thing forward. A grinding sound echoed off of the gorge walls from beneath the draped robes, and the brute stomped through the charred wood from the dead fire and the piles of broken darts and spear tips.

They were not so brazen or foolish as to disturb the stony graves -- there was no need to offend the Kwarzi or the gods that had claimed the dead souls -- but the brute single-mindedly plodded forward until it reached the center of the radiating stains of violence. Brushing away a stubborn blackbird, the larger figure grabbed Sata's picked over, sun-wizened body from the spear he'd been left impaled upon.

Dry skin rustled, bones cracked, and the brute dropped the corpse at the smaller figure's feet. "And what to do with the fool?" It sniffed the air, looked back and forth in the moonless night, "I know you're still here. They didn't burn you on purpose. In a few more days, your soul will be scattered into nothingness, food for Kwarzi and the Shedia." The wind gusted slightly, and ghastly blue light flared from beneath the brute's robes. "And here is your rotten corpse. It still stinks of your desperate magic. Crude, but still a useful vessel." The figure poked it with a thin finger, "I could, I should, just fill it with raw magic and let it take your place in Kuva."

Dust swirled around their feet and the corpse.

"No? I could force you back into your body. It's far more difficult, and your debt to me would be great. But you would have the chance to hunt down my Prize for me, perhaps even drape some real flesh on those bones again. If not, I could banish you from this place, send you off to whatever the Second Life holds for you. The Shedia, though, would probably snatch you from the River of Souls, for your shame."

The air was still, stagnant, the stench of Sata's body thick.

The figure shrugged, spinning a new spell with curled fingers and murmured words of power, but the wind blustered, blowing the flies and beetles from Sata's remaining skin and lifting the few hanks of black hair still on his scalp. "Ah. A wise choice, keeping your soul from the Shedia's jaws." The figure altered their movements and words, the wisps of power shifting in color. The air grew cool, swirling down from above the gorge, racing faster and faster towards Sata's motionless body. Already a dark night, the few scraps of starlight that lit the Ketza dimmed in the canyon until the brute, figure, and corpse were swallowed by inky blackness.

The air was still, lit again. The figure sniffed, twisting its hand once more with a swirl of purple light. Sata jerked upright, sockets long since picked clean by the birds glowing with the same unlight they'd been given by his addiction to magic. Bones snapped, chewed muscles tore and ripped, but Sata managed to stand, if only barely. Wisps of magic slowly mended the worst of his wounds, a process that would take weeks, if not months, and would serve only to make him functional and keep him from decaying further.

"Prize?" Sata moaned, a death rattle in reverse.

The figure sneered, disgusted by the hideous perversion of magic and life in front of them, and simply beckoned across the Ketza, "You can feel it now. The Prize. It is worth more than all of the riches the fool Emperor sits upon, and you will have enough of them to regain life if you bring me the Prize. Alive."

"Alive?" Sata's voice was pained.

"Alive. Now go."

Sata turned, body creaking, and climbed due west, ignoring the track, drawn inexorably by revenge and magic even as he stumbled and broke again and again in the rocks. He would have his Prize, and with it, a return to life.