Starry Resonance Ch. 07

"I bet she hasn't given a second thought to any of this," Yvain said. One of the things Roesia lacked the most was the ability to ask herself if she should rather then just rush ahead with her experiments.

Nora caressed his hands as they rested on her breasts. "Do not worry. You won't find a better guide than me to help her. I'm the goddess of dragons, remember?"

"How could I forget?" Yvain said and grabbed Nora's tail that had been wrapped around his waist before lightly biting it.

Shivers ran through her back, "You should do that more often."

"I'll keep it in mind," he said with a chuckle. "For now, we should get ready, don't you need some time to prepare before we train tonight?"

"You are correct," Nora said with some disappointment.

Yvain understood her longing all too well. If it wasn't for her current state, they could have at least put a few more poundings in between now and later.

"Do not fret," Yvain said and gave his girlfriend a few pats on the back indicating for her to stand up. "Once you're doing better, I'll have you..." then he remembered.

"Why do you faint so much when we're having sex?" he asked.

Nora was half-way out of the shower reaching for one of the towels. She looked back with an 'isn't it obvious?' expression and said, "Because you quite literally fuck me into oblivion?" before fully exiting the shower.

"Oh," Yvain said. He didn't know why but he expected something more. Not that the fact that he made Nora lose all notion of control didn't fill him with pride.

Yvain got out of the shower and began getting ready while running images through his mind of himself doing the same thing to Roesia.

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It was Nora's second night as part of Draconian's Tavern. She and Yvain had spent the rest of the trip, before stopping for training, absorbing starlight on top of the carriage as it moved.

In the goddess's own words, absorbing large amounts of starlight was difficult during the day.

During the day and inside a carriage? It was nearly impossible.

Yvain had asked Nelimir and Elly to join them, but Nora barred their leader from absorbing anything until she was available, and Elly outright refused.

They were all again sitting in a circle outside of the carriage except for Selt who was lost to his own devices.

Nelimir was in the middle with Nora, trying once more to effectively absorb starlight. Roesia was looking on with worry while holding Nora's sword. Elly and Yvain were on standby in case anything happened that required their assistance.

The sword itself was probably just a way to pacify the sorceress, as Nora had told Yvain in private how what occurred yesterday could not be repeated. It was pure luck that it worked, and even if it wasn't and she could somehow recreate the life saving effect, she didn't have anywhere near enough strength to do it.

She had actually shown misgivings about having Nelimir try to absorb starlight again so soon. Even Elly had surprisingly backed her up.

When that didn't work, the goddess began the lesson of the night and gave an even more detailed explanation on what it meant to absorb starlight. How it was affected by our personal wants and needs, some of which we might not even know ourselves. How hours of meditation and emotional maturity was needed. A mental balance of sorts. How that became exponentially more difficult with traumatic experiences.

That, just maybe, a better teacher than her could be found with time and patience. There were many methods of absorbing starlight out there and hers was just one of those.

This part Yvain paid extra attention to. He became more confident in his deduction and ability to create new ways to absorb starlight on his own.

But their leader was stubborn and threatened to just do it by himself. In his own, apologetic way of course. He understood the dangers, but there were things that just had to be done regardless of death. And if he didn't start becoming strong now, he'd just die later rather than sooner.

Something Yvain wholeheartedly agreed with.

Both women stopped trying to talk him out of the attempt then. And so here they were, nervously awaiting the possible death of their leader and friend.

Yvain noted how eerily calm he was. Maybe he was just that confident in that things would be alright? The same couldn't be said for Roesia though. She was clutching Nora's sword so hard he thought she might actually snap it in half.

Yvain stood and walked toward the sorceress. She didn't notice his presence up until the point he sat right next to her. The sorceress moved her head slightly away, trying to dodge his gaze.

"He'll be alright," he said.

"You don't know that," she replied curtly.

She was right of course. He was only saying empty words to help her calm down, but it seemed to have immediately backfired.

It was a weird sensation. Nora was the first woman he had been attracted to and it was extremely easy to communicate with her. Yet now he was attracted to Roesia too, but she didn't feel the same way for him and he had no idea on how to talk to her through the filter that were his feelings for her. Or at least that was his guess as to why he felt so awkward.

Not knowing what else to say he just looked on at Nora and Nelimir in silence until a new thought entered his mind.

Maybe she's still mad about earlier?

"Sorry about this afternoon."

"Sorry for slapping you."

Yvain spoke and his voice overlapped with Roesia's. The sorceress somehow hid deeper into herself with embarrassment, her scaly tail furling onto itself.

Yvain, unlike her, didn't really suffer much from social embarrassment and just smiled as he said, "That really hurt you know."

The sorceress looked up immediately with genuine worry, "It did?"

"Um..." How Yvain didn't smash his lips against her at that moment was beyond him. His plans of teasing her flew out the window in wake of her doe eyes.

"It didn't. Sorry, I was joking," he said.

Roesia gave a sigh of relief and said, "That's not funny."

Yvain bent forward a bit to look directly into her beautiful, yellow, slitted eyes.

"Come on, did you really think you could hurt me? You might be stronger now, but you have a long way to go before you can keep up with me," he said.

"That doesn't matter, I still hit you and...you sounded a bit sad afterward," she said quietly at the end.

Did he? Was that the overall reason as to why he was so out of sorts? Why he felt such a wave of emotions? He was sad Roesia slapped him? The more he thought about it the surer he became of that being the cause and the more he became scared of how such a huge reaction came from something so insignificant.

Yvain was about to reply when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye.

Nora had released Nelimir completely. He was still covered in dark and stars, but the goddess was obviously relieved.

Soon after the darkness began to recede until it was completely swallowed up into Nelimir's stomach. He let out a slow breath.

"I will certainly need to work on some things in the future," he said.

Nora nodded, "You did well regardless. But this doesn't mean that you couldn't lose control at any moment. You need to train your mind. Make it as steady and powerful as you can. Focus on the small things and move up from there."

"In other words, don't bite off more than you can chew," Elly added.

Nelimir nodded seriously. "I won't fail you all. I won't die from just absorbing starlight."

"See to it," Nora said with an amicable smile and then looked to Roesia, "Seeing as Nelimir should be able to start absorbing starlight on his own, along with the rest, I should be able to help you get started after a few more nights of recuperating."

"Take all the time you need," Roesia said.

Yvain observed her. She was still holding tightly onto Nora's sword. None of her nervousness had left.

Nelimir was okay though. What had her riled up? He was about to ask her, but the sorceress stood and took the sword to Nora.

"You guys will probably remain awake most of the night, but I need sleep. I'll see you all tomorrow at breakfast," she said and left for the carriage as everyone bid her a good night.

Well, she's probably perturbed. Yvain couldn't expect everyone to look on at such a phenomenon, a blackness covering your whole body, and remain calm.

Elly was already covered in her own, absorbing starlight at a steady pace, regardless of her sling impeding perfect form.

"I'll remain here as a guard," Nora said. "Always remember that if you train in the open someone needs to keep watch. When absorbing starlight, you are completely defenseless to outside attacks."

"We appreciate it," Nelimir said. "Don't fret too much though, this side of Empryon knows no crime and the wildlife steers clear of the main road."

"I also doubt anyone will pass through here at this hour," Yvain said and looked to Nora. "If they do though, make sure to hide in the carriage. Nothing will happen to us."

"I'll at least hide out of sight, but I won't abandon you," she said.

They were sure she could manage that easily, so they both agreed to her terms.

With that, Yvain, Elly, and Nelimir fully began their journey toward higher power.