The Romance on the Violet Sword

Given a second chance at life, he ran. He ran with the sole purpose of avenging his beloved. And should he lay eyes upon Rayleen again, he would tear her limb from limb so she would understand his struggle. Even if she was once his friend.

Now, Ian of the Red Bay, drenched in a deluge of blood, gripped her by the collar as he reminisced about a time long ago, when he first vowed to rip her to shreds. He knew his own survival was nothing short of a miracle, and no amount of telling the tale could ever convince him that it was true.

"Well, now, Rayleen, the chips are down for you, again. What say you?"

The Commander gritted her teeth in agony, a lance shoved through her shoulder and into the corpse of one of her men. Bodies lay strewn throughout, and only Ian's naked torso, shredded with gashes, but nonetheless intact, stood within the chamber.

"Ian, I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" she cried. "I know what I did was wrong, but... you would have done it too! I know you would have!"

"Aye!" he said, shaking her. "I would have, if only to spite you! My only mercy left now is not reserved for you, but for your children who shant grow up without a parent, like I did!"

"...children, what do you–?"

"Siblings, Rayleen? Fool, you never had any. Who is the father?"

"I—he..."

For a moment, Rayleen's answer lay frozen on her lips. She could not bear to say his name. Least of all, to Ian.

"You know what? Never mind. I no longer care."

"Ian? I-Ian, are you going to kill me?"

"No," he replied plainly. "I won't stand for more orphans, and I'm sure Aria still cares for you. I will respect her wishes."

For a moment, Commander Rayleen felt a wave of relief, until Ian grabbed another nearby lance and jammed it through her other shoulder, burying the tip in another corpse.

"Gods, bastard—" she screamed.

"If you want to get out of here, take those out yourself."

Trudging through the bloody sewage, Ian lumbered his way to the narrow passage through which his companions had gone. He relished the Commander's colorful curses echoing all the way to the exit.

Epilogue II: The Virgin's Dawn

ARIA was exhausted. Utterly drenched, she and James somehow made their way to a small hamlet some distance away. They found an inn, divested themselves of their soiled clothing, and bathed to their heart's content. Wearing naught but their underclothes, they slept arm-in-arm in an inn room until dawn arrived. When Aria finally opened her eyes, it was to the rays of sunlight that peered through a window, providing little warmth in the cold morning air. The room's fireplace had naught left but cold ashes.

Gods, what a yesterday.

Aria rose from the sheets quietly, shivering from the lick of the morning air upon her breast. Beside her lay the still James, whose faint snore was stifled by the goose-down pillow.

Her feet touched the floor, wincing from its chill, though it was nothing like the river. Dressed in nothing but her purple-patterned sword panties, she brushed the burlap curtain aside and peered out the window.

Six o clock? Seven o clock?

Down the cobblestone street, she saw the first emanations of smoke rise from the chimney of the smokery, lit by the barely rising sun. And beyond it, she witnessed an apprentice from the bakery carry a heavy sack through the front door. And in the far-off distance... lay the gates of Armad itself. The massive steel doors, now shut tight, stood as a great monument for all people in the countryside. But even Aria knew those doors took the price of men to make. To her, they were a symbol of Devlan's darkness—to keep enemies out and friends in, except all too often it seemed the opposite.

"Something on your mind, Aria?"

The deep, morning voice of James resonated behind her. Shy as he could be, he certainly did not appear to be now. She glimpsed his nude reflection in the window pane, his bottom half submerged beneath the sheets.

"Yes," she replied. "I was just... thinking."

"About Ian?"

"...no. Somehow, I'm sure he can take care of himself."

"Then... that woman?"

Aria nodded.

"She was my friend, and colleague. I must ask myself, what transpired in her life to make that choice? How long had she been hiding those feelings?"

"Perhaps one day you'll meet her again and find out?"

"I hope so. I yet sympathize with her, and I'm certain we want the same thing. Just not... in the same way. Unfortunately."

Aria stared at the twin doors in the distance, glimmering in the reflective dawn. Upon the left door was carved the image of the Emperor himself. And on the right door was embossed the image of James's late mother. The doors were a remnant of the past when the country once celebrated their marriage. One day, Aria thought, the newly-formed army of the Vormian Union would storm those doors and tear them down, creating a gate that would remain forever open. That was her dream now.

"Well, Aria, you must be cold standing stark naked like that. I'll give you my robe—"

"No need, James!" she said with an infatuating smirk. "I'll jump back in with you in a minute."

"I-I see," James responded.

She turned to face him, her blue eyes eager. James's heart skipped several beats as he gazed upon her pale body: her wriggling dainty toes; curvaceous hips; bounteous breasts; and wavy hair like burnished amethyst. He glimpsed the cloven eminence of her womanhood indenting the pattern of her panties, the sight of which caused a familiar heat to rush to his loins, just as Aria leapt under the sheets with him.

"James... you're..."

Her bottom nudged squarely against his hips, where she felt his girth.

"Sorry, Aria, I—" he stammered, a blush blanketing his cheeks as though he were a teenager again.

"Don't worry about it. Walking around naked like that, I should have known."

She chuckled and snuggled closer. James felt his hardened shaft nestled by her feminine bottom, followed by a rising urge to make love with her once more.

Evidently, she was of the same mind.

As early in the morning it was, there was no rule saying "this" and "that" could only be done on an evening. No, even as dawn broke, a strong sexual desire overtook them to finish what they started the night before last. Naked, but comfortable in the clean, cotton sheets, Aria took a dominant position again, straddling James's hips and locking her yearning gaze on his own. At least, she appeared dominant. Aria only took the position that she thought would bring the most pleasure.

She leaned and touched him forehead-to-forehead.

"Hey, do you mind, James? Surely you don't."

"Don't mind what?" He blinked.

"We... didn't get to—I mean, you didn't find release that night."

"It was your first time. Something like that wasn't on my mind, Aria. I care for your well-being far more than that."

"Thank you James," she replied. "But your happiness is important to me too. We'll do it together. Would you like to do it inside me?"

Aria's request both surprised and elated James. The conflict plain on his face—that he should have such a satisfaction—clashed with his sense of responsibility. But Aria dashed them away.

"It's fine, James. I want to feel you here, inside. Completely inside. The way it should be done. And nowhere else. Right?"

"Are you sure?"

Aria reached for her hand bag on the night table, and from it retrieved a small cutting of red shrubbery. She slipped the leaves whole in her mouth and gave them a gentle chew, before bending down and locking her lips on her lover.

As her tongue slipped in his mouth, the young knight tasted the herb that he thought had been her contraceptive, and was confounded when, in the heat of the moment, she salaciously passed it into his mouth, would not take it back, and did not disengage her kiss until he swallowed it whole.

A bridge of moisture connected their lips as she withdrew.

"...what was that?" he said with a grimace.

"That was Red Holly. It makes a man's seed weak and unable to cope in a woman's body."

James frowned, feeling emasculated somehow.

"Don't give me that face, James. It's only temporary. Red Holly works extremely well! Much better than Silphium for women. And tastes better too."

"Ah... are you sure?"

"I think so! If the walls can't be fortified, just destroy the catapult."

"That sounds painful."

"It's just a phrase."

Her violet locks curtained over his face and her own, like a prison. But with the ample spheres of her breasts flat against his chest, it was anything but. He wasn't sure if she was teasing him. But for the moment, he let all his doubts pass into oblivion, and accepted her deeply erotic kisses, between which James could scarcely voice his concerns.

"I hope... it doesn't have any side effects."

"Only one side effect, James."

"And what might that be?"

She glided her forefinger over the hard stud of his nipple, and kissed him again before throwing the sheets over themselves. Her touch slew him far faster than any of Valakov's men ever could.

The sunlight from the window lit the two figures of James and Aria wrestling and tousling under the linen. The kiss was lascivious, with tongues dancing and breaths shared in the tight clasp of their lips. Her hands ran over his clavicle and nipples, tousling his brown hair and stroking his erection with the flat of her belly. Likewise, his fingers ran down the small of her back, stopping just shy of her patterned bottoms. Then the gap of Aria's thigh nestled on James's leg, her veiled vulva grinding sensuously against it.

Scarcely a minute passed by before Aria and James decided her panties were no longer needed. It ended up bundled at the foot of the bed after Aria burst from beneath the sheets with a great breath, like a dolphin breaking the ocean surface. She was straddling James's face now, her long legs spread wide in a V-shape over his awaiting mouth. The naked vision and heavy scent of her hairless peach-shaped lips beckoned James. Her wavy hair a tousled mess, Aria feverishly peered at the eyes of her lover below, until her head tilted back in an extravagant exhale.

"Aaaah... J-James...!"

His thumbs parted her smooth, plush labia, peering into the intricacies of her sex that he had only glimpsed in his most fantastical dreams: her delicate, inner folds; her opening, and the small, pink, hooded pearl above that. Her wiry, violet pubic hair was woven light and airy like a silky flame in the horizon of his eyes. In truth, James, as chivalrous as he could be, was delirious with both lust and wonder, the musty scent of Aria, tinged with myrrh, made duly concentrated under the sheets.

A drip of her arousal marked his unshaven cheek.

"I guess... I was looking forward to it as much as you?" she quipped.

James did not stop to answer as he planted his mouth whole on her womanhood. His nose nudged deep in her pubis and his tongue lapped and sluiced at the valley between her sensitive lips. Strong and rough, yet gentle, his tongue penetrated her shallow depths and stroked against her textured walls. Then he slipped the tip of his tongue against her urethra, prodding and rotating around it. When he finally reached her clis, he enclosed it in the gentle tug of his lips, suckling and lapping and flicking the bud in a great effort to undo her. Beads of arousal pooled on his tongue, which he drank and swallowed as if parched by a desert sun.

The noises that Aria made were the perfect music to his ears. The sighs and moans and shudders that resulted from his proclivities satisfied his inner self, even as his throbbing manhood lay completely unattended.

When Aria rose from James's face and his prying thumbs, her elastic labia slipping shut like a double-leaved door, he found her face flushed with red. Her eyes were watery with pleasure, and the condensation of her breaths were visible in the morning air.

"Are you okay, Aria?" James inquired, his chin wet with her fluids.

"Y-y-yes... g-give me a minute..."

Feeling just the slightest desire stirring, James held Aria's waist in his hands and readjusted himself ever so slightly. Still getting her bearings together, Aria yet understood and nestled her glossy crevasse on the curved underside of James's shaft. He ground his member between her lips, coating his frenulum in her glistening, slippery flow.

Aria leaned down and kissed her lover again, tasting herself on his lips.

Then she sat up once more, the sunlight striking her burnished, amethyst hair just so. Her dangling sapphire-blue earrings quivering in anticipation, she aligned herself with James's thickened length and slowly sunk down on it with a throaty gasp. His thick glans parted her cleft, passing beyond the tender ridges inch by inch, until James felt himself fill out the narrow breadth of Aria's melting core, from wall to wall. When he thought he felt the tip of his glans kiss her womb ever so slightly, James knew he had gone as far as he could go. And the couple, reveling in their connection, moaned long and low.

"Gods, I love you, James..."

Aria began with a measured maneuver of her hips, not resting upon one angle or two, but striving to find any angle that best hit her right. James followed along for the ride, spellbound by her rapturous figure while she gradually increased her pace.

She did not need any overcomplicated techniques to tantalize and stimulate; she in her naked, immaculate form, ensconced squarely on his lap, was enough to fill the glass to the cusp, and slosh its wine to-and-fro with the intoxicating rhythm of her waist. And when it threatened to spill, James would grasp her bottom, signaling for Aria to shallow her movements.

"Ah... hah... oh..." she mewled.

A dozen minutes seemed to pass as James relished in the service Aria was giving him. But as much as he enjoyed being her boat, he could lay still no longer. His eyes fell upon Aria's ample bust trembling in rhythm.

His fingers traced along her firm muscled abdomen, brushed over the lightly-bruised bone of her rib cage, and suddenly met with a great contrast in tenderness, where the underside of her breast suddenly broke its softness upon his calloused fingers. He sat up and gently gripped the pale orbs, each topped with a swelling, pink peak, and ensconced his mouth over one. He fondled and tousled and sucked deeply, expecting nothing to come out but the sweet cries of her alabastrine throat. When he drew her tender flesh deep in his mouth, like a vacuum, she cried out obscenely and in such a way that she was sure everyone outside could hear.

As if understanding her embarrassment, the knight muffled her moans on his palm while he continued suckling her breast with a longing that bordered on insanity. Then, with a pop, his lips detached from her pale flesh, a viscous bridge of saliva between his tongue and her firm nub.

"Gods, who are you and what have you done with James..." she gasped, a degree of humor still present despite his ministrations.

He continued to suck her other breast, barely containing her muffled cry. But before long, the sensation of Aria's sopping depths began to undo him. She was moving much faster now, and the knight could scarcely continue to service her as his sensitive glans drunk deep in her emphatic maneuvers. Until now, he had mostly resisted the urge to moan, but now the pleasure came crashing down all at once.

"Unnnhhh..."

He cradled her waist, his thumbs gently pressing into the skin of her belly. He sought not to slow her down this time, but to accelerate, thrusting upwards with terrific yearning. Aria moaned, indulging in the sloppy smacking of their wet thighs that would take her through the final stretch. Fast. Long. And Deep.

"James, I... it's coming!" she moaned, biting her lip.

"Is this okay," he gasped.

"Yes," she replied through the slick smack of their hips. "Let it... define our decision."

James nodded. A rivulet of sweat rolled down his neck. Faster and faster he thrust as Aria's naked thighs thumped upon his own in a lubricious melody. Until the depths of his desire bubbled up and could be restrained no more. The pale liquid lust lanced through his gut, every muscle in his loins contracting with the pleasure of eminent release. Molten and hot as his own body, his seed erupted powerfully and copiously from his primed manhood, glazing Aria's depths with layers upon layers of his love so long restrained.

"Hngg... Aria-!"

"Oh Gods...!"

It was more than Aria could take. She joined James in his throaty gasp as her own orgasm finally caught up with her. The feeling that had been brimming within her finally overflowed, as if wine from a glass. She shuddered violently. Betwixt her spasming lips fountained beads of liquid crystal, running clear but sweet as though nectar from a fertile flower. The contractions within further milked James as he came, while Aria's own fluids gushed and spritzed lady-like over her lover's muscular abdomen, soaking the newly whitened sheets.

"Aaaaahhhhh–-"

They cried out in unison, scarcely able to maintain eye contact. As their minds and souls connected on nearly every level on this morning, so too did their minds bleach white together as the intensity of their sex reached the pinnacle.

When the pleasure begun to wane, she supplanted her hand on his un-shaven cheek, reveling in the afterglow. The warmth of his seed spread outward from her belly, like a reverse embrace.

"I can feel you inside, James," she said with a smile. "It's warm."

"Y-yes. I wish... we could stay this way forever."

The thought occurred to him of actually doing so. They would be comfortable in this bed, in this inn, paying for the room day after day, while the world continued without them even as war loomed on the horizon. A pair of lovers blissfully ignorant of all they must accomplish. But James knew they could not let their romancing get the better of them. That was not the purpose of their consummation in the first place. Moreover, a deeply embarrassing rumble emanated from Aria's stomach. She turned beet red—so much more than before.

"I think it might be time for... breakfast?" James suggested with an amused simper.

"M-maybe."

"I'll make you a tomato omelet. With basil."

"That actually sounds delicious," she said with a beam.

Gingerly, James unsheathed his length from her snug clasp. The swollen ridge of his glans emerged from her plush lips with a slick 'pop'. And a pale mass of their combined syrup spilled from her slit and ran sap-like down the length of his manhood. But Aria, feeling a fancy perversion overwhelming her, sunk down on his erection again, as if to churn it all up in her belly once more.

"Gah! A-are we not done?" James half in jest, his body shivering in her honeyed warmth.

"Heh, sorry," she teased.

They fell into an embrace before falling asleep for just a while longer, their thighs still awkwardly plastered in each other's love juice.

They didn't care. It was only the first of many encounters to come.