The Hexhunt

That, at least, Asper heard. They eased up to the bar, behind which a muscle-bound minotaur with a nose ring was slinging drinks.

"It's been a while, Matthias," Elemiel said. She didn't have to wave to get the bartender's attention. Half the people at the bar were already staring at her, wearing various expressions of jealousy, desire, and keenly prurient interest on their faces.

As well they should, given what this dress cost.

"Elemiel, as the grass grows beneath my hooves," Matthias said, setting his palms flat across the bartop and bending to get a better look at her. "It's been an age since you blessed this tavern with your charms."

"Nice to see you too," Elemiel replied. "The place is as busy as ever."

The minotaur shrugged, and it was a little like watching a landslide begin. "Cold night. People want warm company. Speaking of which, you two are more overdressed than a gnome at a Deepwinter Solstice party." Matthias nodded to Elemiel and Asper's ostentatious garb.

"'Ey," slurred a gnomish woman sitting at the bar, half a dozen empty cups already spread out on the counter in front of her. "I resemble that..."

"Date night, Elemiel said by way of explanation. "How about a couple of beers?" She set down a pair of silver coins on the bartop.

The minotaur shook his head. "Keep your money. Just give us a song before the night is out. All that fellow wants to do is caterwaul about 'heaving bosoms' and 'straining mooseknuckles'." He pointed at the stage. The bard had one foot on a stool and was doing some vigorous thrusting in time to the tune he strummed out of his lute.

"I'll think about it," Elemiel said with a laugh.

The elf and the knight collected their beers and found a table near the wall. Elemiel supposed they could've gone up to the second floor where it was quieter, but she wanted to immerse herself in the raucous, joyful ambiance of the place. Asper sat next to her, clapping along with the rest of the common room and laughing at the bard's antics.

The light from the roaring hearth lit the planes of his face, and the illumination made him look somehow wild and untamable. Elemiel thought back to the events of the past few days; the thrill of sparring with him, the adventure at the museum, the way he made her feel with his touch and his lips, and the manner in which he breathed her name like a prayer as he came...

"Are you alright?" Asper asked.

"Yes. Why?"

The knight frowned. "You just had this intense look on your face, is all. Worried about the Hexhunt tomorrow?"

Elemiel gathered the long, dark waterfall of her hair and draped it over one shoulder. "Not in the slightest," she said, which was the truth. The only thing she felt when she thought of the Hexhunt and the confrontation with Duke Ditherington was a wild kind of excited joy.

"You're a fierce thing," Asper chuckled, taking a pull of beer from his mug.

"Lusty too, don't forget that," Elemiel said. "I've been meaning to thank you, you know," the elf said abruptly.

Asper blinked at the sudden change in subject. "Oh really?" he said slowly, perhaps fearing she was about to spring upon him some trap of painfully biting sarcasm. "Whatever for?"

Elemiel toyed with her mug of ale, choosing her words with care. Sarcasm would've been easier, but at that moment, she wanted to share the truth with him.

"Do you remember when we first met, and you asked if I missed it?"

Asper stared at her blankly. "Missed what?"

"Do try to keep up," she snipped. Perhaps it was a little unfair, but she was feeling vulnerable. "I'm talking about adventuring, obviously; the road, the danger, and the freedom."

"Ah," Asper said, his countenance growing serious. "I do in fact. Actually, I remember just about everything from that first encounter. The way that the icewine tasted on my tongue, and the way you looked in that dress while you called me an asshole. Even the little bit of eclair you had on your lip."

"I most certainly did not have eclair on my lip," she retorted.

"What's a little pastry cream between friends?" he said, waving her comment away. "But yes, Elemiel. I remember."

The elf was silent for a moment. "Well, I do," she finally said. "I do miss it. And since I met you, it feels like some of that adventure has been brought back into my life." She sighed. "I know I sound like an absolute twat, but it can be very dull, being me."

Asper reached across the table and took her hands in his. He had the hands of a swordsman, rough and calloused, but his touch was gentle, almost tender.

"Elemiel, I refuse to believe anything concerning you could ever be dull."

"Cut that out immediately," she said primly. "No man has a right to be that charming. It's a little off-putting if I'm being honest."

The knight laughed that warm laugh of his, and Elemiel's smile was spreading across her face before she even realized it. On the stage, the bard finished his song, and Asper spoke into the relative quiet

"If it's an adventure you're after," he said, looking up at the bars tuning his life on the stage, "I can't think of anything more exhilarating than singing to a packed crowd of ruffians in a bawdy tavern."

"What?" Elemiel squeaked and immediately winced at the panicked cast to her voice. "I mean, that's not happening, Asper. I haven't prepared any songs. Solana's swollen clitoris, I don't even have my lute..."

"Looks like that fellow has one you can borrow," he nodded at the bard. "Come now, I don't imagine he'd say no to you if you flashed him a bit of a smile."

"It's not happening," the elf said flatly.

Asper stroked his chin. "Interesting," he mused, "very interesting."

"What?" she asked icily.

"Oh, nothing. It's just... I haven't known you for very long, Elemiel, but I wouldn't have guessed you were quite so timid."

Elemiel froze. Her spine stiffened, and she turned slowly in her chair so that she could stare daggers at the knight.

"Asper," she said slowly, "I am not the sort of woman you can call 'timid' without consequences."

Asper just smiled that maddening smile of his. Elemiel felt her blood catch fire, burning with equal parts passion and annoyance.

"Gods," he replied, "I'm fascinated to find out what those consequences might be."

Elemiel slammed her pint down on the table. The beer sloshed out of the mug and onto her hand, but the elf paid it no heed. "Right," she said, shooting to her feet. "You just sit there and watch."

Elemiel threaded her way through the crowd, strutting across the common room floor as if it were a catwalk. It was the kind of walk that drew eyes from across the room, a way of moving that made a statement about her confidence and her sensuality. Her hair streamed like a battle standard behind her, and her arms swung loosely as her hips swiveled from side-to-side, sinuous as a sharkeel.

Conscious of the eyes upon her but interested only in one storm-gray gaze in particular, Elemiel finally reached the bard. He was a pleasant-looking fellow with slicked-back golden brown hair and a neatly groomed beard. He looked up from his lute when he heard her approach, and did a double-take when he saw Elemiel standing there before him.

"Hello there, miss elf," he said with friendly enthusiasm. "My name's Virgil. Got a request for me, then?"

"Indeed," she said. "I want to borrow your lute."

"Uh... what?" Whatever the bard had been expecting, it clearly hadn't been that.

"Thank you ever so much," Elemiel said. She bent forward, making sure the man got a truly excellent view of her breasts, cradled as they were in the gossamer silk and glinting jewels of her bodice. She plucked the lute from the man's nerveless fingers. He almost made a noise of protest, but she moved her shoulders, shaking her tits in an unsubtle display of delicious flesh, and his jaw practically hit the floor.

"Right," he mumbled, eyes fixed upon her cleavage. "I'll just... wait here."

Elemiel took the stage, squinting out at the crowd against the brightness of the glowstone lights set into the rim of the platform. She picked out Asper at the table near the wall. He was leaning forward in his chair, quite literally on the edge of his seat, all of his focus and attention riveted upon her.

As it should be.

Elemiel sat down on the stool and carefully crossed her legs. She wasn't wearing underwear--she was an elf, after all--but her positioning was borne more out of the practical need to brace her lute and far less about modesty. Elemiel was completely unconcerned about flashing her kitten to the crowd. She had a fantastic pussy, and they should all be so lucky to see it.

No indeed, the butterflies in her stomach and the clammy sweat that suddenly covered her palms had nothing to do with exposing herself. The truth was that Elemiel had always gotten the jitters before a performance. Asper, sitting there with his hands clasped under his chin and an expectant, eager expression on his face, wasn't helping matters.

She plucked a few experimental notes from the lute, and the audience grew quiet. Curious faces turned towards her at the first trickle of her music. Asper gave her an encouraging wink.

Right. Here goes nothing.

As it always did, the trepidation melted away as soon as she began to sing. The music left Elemiel's lips and curled around the notes that her fingers coaxed from the lute on her lap. The music lifted through the air like motes of gold leaf or sparks from a campfire. The tavern quieted, as even the animal familiars of the druids and rangers settled in to listen and to watch.

The elf paid them little heed. All the fiber of being was focused on the man with the storm gray eyes sitting at the table across the room.

She chose an old elven love song called the Blackbird and the Battle Elf. It was a story filled with melancholy and devotion, rife with sorrow that soared like an eagle and sweetness that seared the heart raw. It was a song of love and lust and the gentle, kind spaces in between, of adventure and sacrifice and selflessness.

The lyrics were all in elvish of course, but that wasn't a problem for Asper. Elemiel saw that the knight's eyes were very wide as he watched her perform and that his lips were slightly parted as if he were about to gasp in awe or wild, joyful agony.

The music poured through her in a torrent to rival the surging might of the Silverslip, and when Elemiel finally ended her song she felt as if her soul had been washed clean. Absently she brushed a little rill of moisture from her cheek back of her hand, belatedly realizing that she'd been weeping a little.

That better not have ruined my mascara, Elemiel thought, unreasonably irritated with herself all of a sudden. She didn't dare look at Asper.

The elf unfolded her legs and rose from the stool before a room struck dumb. It was as if none of the hard-bitten adventurers in the tavern dared break the sanctified hush left by the last fading notes of her song. Elemiel handed the lute back to the bard, who accepted it with open-mouthed astonishment.

Finally, a woman in the crowd stood up--the lithe girl wearing the metal bikini with aspirations to armor Elemiel had noticed earlier. One of her friends--the foxy redhead with the undercut--tugged at her hand to try to get her to sit down, but the woman shook her off.

"Holy fucking shit," she exclaimed, "I gotta admit that I have no idea what any of that meant, but I think it was the best song I've ever heard in my life."

The girl began to clap, and the sound of her palms coming together broke the enchantment. A torrent of applause rushed in to fill the silence, and in a few moments, it seemed as if the entirety of the Tipsy Cow was on its feet, the thunder of their approval shaking the rafters.

Elemiel grinned and took a bow, then descended from the stage. She ignored innumerable shouted invitations to join other tables and drew to a halt before Asper. He slowly rose to his feet.

"Thank you," he said.

Elemiel blinked. Of all the ways she thought he might react, gratitude hadn't been one of them. "Whatever for?" she asked.

The knight cupped her face in his hands, brushing his thumb across the smooth skin of her cheek where Elemiel knew the tear had left its track.

"For that beautiful gift," he answered. "For sharing yourself." He held her gaze, and at that moment it felt as if she were laid bare before him, stripped down to the very essence of her soul.

"You captivate me," he whispered, his breath feathering against her lips.

"I..." she hesitated, overwhelmed by the vulnerability. "I can't believe you managed to say that without staring at my tits," she replied, trying and failing at a tone of casual indifference.

"Stop deflecting, Elemiel," he said, and the raw, unsheathed expression he wore on his face speared through her heart like a lance. "You are the wildest, most joyful, most infuriating creature--"

"Hush," she said, "did you just learn what a superlative was today or something? Get to the point." Her voice was soft and carried no bite.

"Damn it." Asper frowned. "The point is, Elemiel, that I'm falling in love with--"

She kissed him before he could get the sentence out completely, swallowing it down into her very soul. It lay there like a hot coal on the touchwood of her being, and the fire it ignited blazed through her body. Asper's arms encircled her, and the heat roared into a beautiful conflagration. An aeon sped by as they stood there, lips and bodies pressed together, and when they broke apart scarcely enough time had passed for a butterfly's wingbeat.

"Damn it, Asper," Elemiel said when her tongue untwisted itself. "I'm... falling in love with you too." Admitting it felt like leaping from the highest branch of the Swimming Tree back home in Bromelion. Terrifying to be sure, but exhilarating too. Life-affirming.

Asper held her tightly, and she could see the fear and joy on his face that she knew mirrored her own.

"I would very much like to take you home right now," he said.

"I don't think I'm going to be able to wait that long," she replied.

"Me neither," he admitted, and Elemiel felt him stir against her, "but by the gods, let's give it a try."

Keeping Warm

The doorman looked at them dubiously as the elf and the knight stepped out of the Tipsy Cow and into the street, but Elemiel and Asper were too wrapped up in one another to heed him or the snowstorm blowing outside.

Elemiel's griffon-fur cloak provided plenty of protection against the elements, and the magic of the blue jewel at her throat prevented her from feeling the bite of winter on her skin. She and Asper strode arm in arm down the lane while the wind moaned through the eaves of the Iron Ward. Flurries of snowflakes scudded through the halos of diffuse aureate light cast by the glowstone street lamps. The snow made a wet crunching noise under their shoes.

Asper's hand slid from her arm to her hip, his arm encircling her waist as he drew her against him.

"Are you cold?" he asked, staring down at her as flakes of snow gathered on his long, dark eyelashes.

My winter prince.

"Just the opposite, actually," she said. Elemiel placed her hand over his and pushed it lower until his palm rested on the firm wealth of her bottom. A soft, warm expectation had been gathering inside of the core of her, a need that had grown into an itch and then beyond, building upon itself until it was an ache.

She wanted him, and she wanted him now. The lights of the Emerald Palace were visible but far too distant. It would take the better part of an hour to reach the bottom of the Hill by foot, and there would be no carriages for hire in this storm. Elemiel couldn't wait to satisfy the ferocious craving which had settled somewhere south of her navel. The weather might have taken a turn for the cold, but things were tropical and wet between her legs.

"Come on," Elemiel said, pulling him along behind her while she cast about for a suitable place. She supposed they could've just ducked into a convenient alley, or gone back to the Tipsy Cow and used the bathroom or something. She'd done it in less luxurious places, certainly, but Elemiel didn't want just a quick, frenzied fuck in a dingy bathroom stall or behind a trashcan right now. Not for this. Not after what she and Asper had said to one another.

But fuck, it was hard not to just jump his bones here and now and ride him down into the snow gathering upon the sidewalk.

"Are you sure this is wise?" Asper said, eyeing the thick drifts of snow skeptically. "We're hardly prepared for a blizzard. Not to mention those shoes look like they might be the death of you." The knight smirked, his gaze roving the opulence of her figure. "And by the gods, that gown will certainly be the death of me."

Elemiel just rolled her eyes. When she saw the little park she almost shouted in victory; a copse of pine trees, a pair of warmly glowing streetlights, and a bench nestled under the evergreen branches. It was almost private--although no one was out in this weather or at this hour to watch in any case--and sheltered as it was among the trees, the bench was free of snow.

Perfect. Elemiel's grip on Asper's hand tightened, and she practically dragged him to the bower.

"The road to the Palace is that way," the knight protested, pointing over his shoulder.

Elemiel paid him no heed until they stood by the bench under the branches bent with the weight of gathering snow. Then she turned to Asper, wrapped her arms around his neck, and pulled him down into a kiss so fierce she was surprised it didn't send up a gout of steam from the melting snowpack.

"What are you doing?" he asked, his voice rough and his gray eyes shone so brightly they almost seemed like twin pools of molten silver.

"What does it look like, you dolt?" she asked affectionately, then kissed him again, thrusting her tongue into his mouth as deeply as a hummingbird plundering a flower.

She needed him, craved him on her lips, under her hands, and inside of her body. Her cunt ached to feel his cock filling her. The pleasure between her legs pulsed in anticipation, and from the hard heat pressing against her thigh, she could tell Asper wanted her too.

"I've waited long enough," she declared a little breathlessly.

She pushed Asper back so she could stare at him for a moment. He was beautiful standing there in his dinner clothes, with the snow-covered street behind him covered by a scrim of fat, falling white flakes. He looked like a fairy tale come to life. Then he raised an eyebrow and that damnably charming sideways grin of his spread across his face, and instead, he suddenly looked like a pastry Elemiel couldn't wait to sink her teeth into.

She didn't quite leap at him, but she wasn't subtle about her intentions. Asper let out a surprised little "ooph!" as she nearly crashed into him, but Elemiel didn't feel like teasing anymore. The anticipation had turned to frustration, and the needy craving she felt for his taste on her tongue and his flesh beneath her hands was sharp and diamond hard. She was nearly desperate to have him sheathed within her sweetly aching body.

Asper cradled her, feathering kisses across her cheeks, her jaw, her eyelids, but she wanted more than tender caresses. She wanted to feel his passion rise to meet hers. The elf reached back and expertly undid the clasp of her dress with a single hand. It slid from her voluptuous form into a silvery puddle on the pine-strewn ground of the bower. In a heartbeat, she was naked, the rolling acres of her taut flesh on display.

"Gods," Asper murmured. "Gods."

Elemiel didn't feel the cold, but she suddenly wanted to. She wanted to feel everything. Her fingers went to the nape of her neck and made short work of the band of her choker. The blue jewel came off, and as it did the sensation of cold rushed in.