To Walk the Constellations Pt. 12

I shook my head. "That's..."

"Cowardly?" he asked.

"Yes," I hissed.

"Craven?" His voice dipped lower. His eyes were starting to close -- one by one.

"Yes..." I could barely hear myself.

"I don't care," Adoran said. "All I have to do is think of Thale...and it becomes worth it."

CONNECTION

Tenderly, my hand reached out. I pressed it to the side of his greyhound ribs. I felt his heart, thundering. It was the same beat pattern, the constant drumbeat, as mine. When I tried to sleep and couldn't, I felt this same tattoo, rumbling under my skinny ribs. This heart loved Thale as much as me.

And was willing to do anything for him.

"Even if it's wrong," I whispered.

"Even," he said.

I closed my eyes and leaned in. My face pressed to his snout and felt the warmth, the slight wetness. Adoran tensed and my hands slipped along the sides of his ribcage, to his shoulders. I drew him in. "You're wrong," I murmured.

"You don't know that," he whispered.

"I'm not," I said.

"You can't know that," he said.

I reached up, gripped the base of his muzzle with my whole hand. "Shut up, Adoran," I said. "If we both love Thale, we can't both be fucking right."

Adoran growled. "Do you talk like this to him in his dreams?"

I smirked, shyly. "O-Only when he's being stupid," I said.

Adoran's last two eyes closed. He leaned in, and his tongue thrust into my mouth. My lips opened and my eyes rolled back into my head as his tongue began to sweep down my throat. It was so...alien. My toes curled and my back arched as he kissed me and kissed me and kissed me. It was a kiss without lips -- only the blunt tip of his muzzle, and the questing, squirming length of his tongue. It was a kiss that stole my breath and made my back arch. My thighs spread wider and wider as I gripped onto Adoran's shoulders.

Then he drew back. His tongue slurped out of my mouth and I coughed. Gasped.

"I...I have to go," he rumbled.

"Wait," I whispered.

He turned. He was walking along the table. And between his legs, I could see the firm swell of his balls and the hanging sheath of his member, the gray fur contrasting against the brilliant pinkish red of his half hard cock. As he walked, his cock slipped further and further from his sheath. I gaped after him -- and then he slipped out of the door. He was gone. I sagged in my chair, my knees pressing together.

He was going to talk to Thale. I knew he was.

Would he be joined by Thale? Next time?

I hoped so.

Christ alive...I hoped so.

SOLITUDE

The next day was spent alone in the castle. I woke from my restless sleep and found that there was an adjoining and anachronistic shower in my room. My subconscious spoiled me with the luxurious soft fluff-scrubber and the thick goopy soap that turned my skin into glittering porcelain. Then I set to exploring the castle.

Every step made me feel stupider. Sillier.

Ballrooms with gleaming white tile floors, where music flowed soft and sweet out of thin air, like syrup. Where I could imagine twirling and spinning and being held.

Training rooms -- like the first place where Thale and I had really...done things. The mats were the same softness, and walking barefoot across them made tiny squeaking noises that made my cheeks heat.

Larders. Larders stuffed with more food, more drink, more fruit, more stuff that worked than I could possibly imagine. There were food stores, yes, in vacc-packing and ice boxes, but there were also rivers of mana, flowing rich and heady with anything I could have desired. It was a fantasy of not only not wanting, but of not thinking about wanting. I could lay down on the amount of bread that was baked and packaged and left for me to eat at my own pleasure.

Was this all my brain was? Food and stuff?

Well.

There were also the darker rooms at the bottom. With the, uh...

Stuff.

Moving on.

When Adoran did return, a day later, he didn't mention Thale.

A LAZY COURTSHIP

Despite saying he could, Adoran never showed up in anything other than the form I'd dreamed up for him. The Hegemonic monster, as seductive as it was terrifying. He and I would take walks beyond the castle, in the forests that were one part Masque Macabre, one part Gamma World, one part dreams from Stumble's own past. The forests stopped making sense the further we got past the castle as my imagination and the simulation broke down. We walked along stairs of wood past slumbering stars, half buried beneath the earth, where the mud began to break down into a black slurry that reminded me of space. We always headed back before going over the edge of the last step -- where the forest itself began to float away into the inky blackness I imagined beyond.

Adoran and I talked as we walked.

He told me about growing up on Elthas. About the family politics, his two mothers, their attempts to adjust and change the Hegemony from inside, like a benign cancer. And, when prompted, I told him about scrapping on Stumble. But I never talked about the places I'd been. The places I'd seen. The people I knew, like Techne or Meetra or Mal or Rossk. I could see that Adoran could see that I was holding back. But he didn't push me.

We were perfect gentlepeople.

But the tension. The memory of our first dinner, of that languid kiss, buzzed through our awareness.

A PROPOSAL

"If you join us," Adoran said, on the third day of quiet talking and long walks. "You could be our concubine."

We were walking along the wall that ringed the castle. Stone bits were worked into the edge to make it hard to shoot us with arrows -- but because this was my imagination, the bits were artfully designed and carved with sneering gargoyles and growling exigenic dogs. I nearly pitched over the wall at the word 'concubine.' I spun to look at Adoran, who was walking with his hands clasped behind his back. Since he was on his haunches, he towered over me. This meant I was looking more at his belly than his face. I craned my head back and tried to not feel like I was looking out of a well.

"I could be your what?"

"Concubine," he said, grinning. "It's a place with considerable prestige and-"

"And fuckery!" I said, shoving his chest with my hands. He took not one step backwards. Adoran remained as sturdy and iron hard as ever. I jerked my hands back like he was hot. "I don't want to be your fuckpet!"

"What about Thale's?" Adoran asked, arching an eyebrow and giving me a toothy little grin. Insolent fuck. Goddamn it. Goddamn it. I crossed my arms over my chest and scowled at him.

"Fuck you," I said.

"Not a no," Adoran murmured, his whip tail lashing.

I tingled. My arms tightened and I glared at him. "You don't think I'd turn against everything I believe in to-"

"No," Adoran said, reaching down with one of his large hands. His fingers cupped the back of my head, and the edge of his claws pressed to my neck and shoulder. I trembled, feeling their razor sharpness. My lips were dry. "No, Venn, I want you to be a part of our family because you could help us change the Hegemony for the better."

"W-While enjoying everything it offers?" I snarled, clinging to my anger. "Fiddling on blackened glass."

Adoran snarled. "It's better than dying."

I turned my head and bit down on his wrist. His frizzy fur brushed against my gums and my teeth found skin and worried at it. Adoran let out a yipping noise. Almost doglike. He tried to draw his wrist backwards, but I grabbed his arm with both of mine, holding him long enough to bite just a bit harder. His other hand planted on my forehead and pushed me backwards. We both panted -- me with my back against the crenelations. Him, poised on the pads of his feet, his tail snapping at the same tempo as my thundering heart.

"You can't win," he said.

"Fuck you," I whispered.

"Gladly," he snarled back. Like it was a joke.

I reached up, grabbed his muzzle, and dragged him in and forced a kiss from him. His tongue thrust into my mouth and he plundered me. That was the only word I had for that kiss -- that long, aching kiss. My toes curled in my rough shoes and my back arched as his powerful hands gripped my hips, holding me up so that he could stand and kiss at the same time. In this dream, I was like a poof of cotton in his hands, and he could hold me against his chest, kissing me more and more deeply. Then he drew his muzzle back, gasping as his tongue retracted. My legs were spread against his narrow belly, and I felt his heat throbbing through my clothing -- just the heat of his fur was enough to drive me wild.

I knew his hardness was below me. But I refused to look, glaring into his blue eyes.

"Thale told me you wouldn't listen," he murmured.

"Where is he?" I asked. I tried to not sound needy.

"Piloting the ship," Adoran said. His tongue slipped along my cheek. It left me moist and trembling. But the words felt like a lie. No. Not a lie. A half-lie, the real truth slipping through my fingers. I put my hands on Adoran's wrists, trying to lever myself up a bit more. I glared into his eyes.

"Bullshit. I've seen astrogation, if we're just making a straight shot for Eudaimonia, then it's just one program. Why..." My throat tightened. "Why isn't he here?" Adoran tried to look away. I took one hand from his wrist, grabbing one of the bony protrusions of his jaw, then yanked his head back to face me. "Why? Tell me why."

"He...didn't say..."

This time, I bit his neck. Hard. Adoran trembled and growled. "I'm the monster here!" His tail lashed, and then reached around. It wrapped around my throat with the dextriousness of a snake, and it tightened. The feeling of choking almost set me over the edge. My eyes rolled back and I clutched at the tail around my throat as Adoran yanked me backwards -- but still held me close. My back arched with the pressure and I made a tiny whimpery noise. The kind of noise I'd want to make in the rooms under the castle. The rooms I didn't want to share with anyone.

"He didn't say, Venn," Adoran said, more firmly this time. With conviction.

"Bull," I hissed around his tail. "You know him."

Adoran looked away. "Do you want me to say it?"

And...

I broke.

"No," I whispered. Because the words were already ringing in my ears. I could see Thale, sitting in the cockpit chair, glaring ahead of himself. I've chosen my side, Venn. He'd sound ragged and rough. But he wouldn't actually look back at me. He wouldn't break. After all. He had a Prince he needed.

Adoran nodded.

"Take me to bed," I whispered.

Adoran snapped his head to look at me.

"I..." I whispered. "I want to...stop thinking. For a bit."

TO BED

Adoran didn't take me to bed.

He flung me over one shoulder and bounded forward -- the castle blurring past me and him. Until, at last, my back slammed into the silk. The cushions bowed underneath me and the pillow whumped with a whistle, and then those claws hooked on my collar and, with quick, savage jerk, my clothing turned into so many tatters. My back arched and I moaned. My breasts tingled with the after-sensation of his claws. My nipples were hard enough to cut glass.

"Let me...kiss you..." Adoran rumbled. Every syllable of the word flashed a different, sharper tooth at me as his muzzle opened and closed. He ducked his head forward as I breathed in and out, each movement of my body letting the ruins of my clothing fall aside.

"Never stopped you before," I whispered.

Adoran leaned forward. "Not there."

His furred fingers, punctuated by the bony hardness of his claws, cupped my pale thighs and my knees as he pushed me upwards. My body spread for him -- and he spread me even further, pushing me more and more open as he looked down at my sex with his glowing, blue on blue eyes. The two saber-sharp teeth that marked his canines teased against my freckled skin as he pressed his muzzle to the folds of my sex. I whimpered as his mouth opened and slowly, his tongue slid out and out and out. It uncoiled and ground against the folds of my sex with the exhale of his breath -- a contented masculine sigh that mixed with my own mewling sound.

If I hadn't been soaked before...

Adoran's eyes narrowed to six slits and the tip of his tongue plunged into my cunt.

My eyes fluttered shut and I moaned. "Thale!"

Both of us froze.

LITTLE DEATH

To say I wanted to die was an understatement.

I wanted to be ripped apart by wild scrap boars. If Adoran had bit down on my thigh and tugged out my femoral, I'd have breathed a sigh of relief on the way out of my mortal coil. Instead his tongue -- textured just enough to drive me body wild with pleasure -- rippled inside of me, grinding against parts of my body that didn't know they could feel bliss. My hips bucked and I bit down on my wrist hard enough to draw blood, not wanting to scream out Thale's name again. But just thinking of him with Adoran's tongue inside me set me over the edge. My body trembled and my vision blurred and flared to white as my eyes closed tight and my moan, muffled as it was, split the air.

When I opened my eyes, my body gleaming with sweat, I saw that Adoran was still holding me up. Still looking down at me, across the flat plane of my belly, through the small valley of my breasts, into my eyes.

He blinked.

It wasn't an all-blink either. Rather, it started at the lowermost right eye, then rippled upwards in a circular pattern, like an ancient loading wheel.

It was the silliest thing. I giggled. I snorted. And then Adoran laughed into me, his tongue drawing back -- his breath hot on my thighs as he laughed against me, my own eyes brimming with tears as the giggles got harder and harder and harder.

"You owe me for that!" Adoran laughed.

"What?" I asked around giggles.

"Oh, for moaning the name of my fiance when I'm in the midst of tongue fucking your most excellent pussy?" Adoran asked.

I squirmed and tried to bat at his head with one of my feet. But Adoran, laughing, pushed me head over heels. I bounced on the bed and ended up on my belly. His hand cupped my neck, and he lifted me up before I could right myself -- and his cock pressed to my mouth. My eyes widened -- then slowly lidded as I took in the exotic shape of him. It was...almost triangular tipped. And...knotted. Thick. Knot. Like a fist. I gulped.

"Open," Adoran murmured.

"Say please," I whispered, barely parting my lips.

"You're the one who owes me, Venn," Adoran growled.

That growl did it. My mouth parted and my eyes looked up at his six blue eyes and he thrust into my throat. I felt the tightness of my throat around his cock -- and my eyes fluttered shut as he started to fuck my throat. I knew I should have been choking...and...part of me was. There was the noise of a choking. The little gurgling gagging noise I'd have expected. But my brain didn't scream for oxygen and my stomach didn't rebel. In this dreamscape of simstimmed excess, I could feel my throat bulge and my jaw strain -- and love it.

Adoran's breath came short and sharp, panting heavily as his furred balls gently slapped my chin. He thrust faster and faster, and I felt his pleasure building -- and my eyes closed as my hands tightened. And...

God, I missed his tongue.

I swear.

Adoran was cheating.

SIZE AND FLEXIBILITY

As Adoran's hips thrust against my face and his cock plunged into my throat, he stretched out his long, limber body. His clawed hands spread my thighs as he leaned forward, and his snout pressed against my sex. He was tall enough that he could keep fucking my throat, twitching his hips to bump his knot against my lips, and still slide his tongue into my sex. My juices spurted along his tongue as I came, moaning -- gurgling really -- around his cock.

Adoran's tongue plunged into me again and again and again -- tongue fucking me with the same roughness he used on my throat. My ability to actually drive him on was eroded, inch by inch. First, I was able to swirl my tongue and suck. Then I was able to suck. But after a few more moments of pleasure, I was left trembled, my eyes rolled back into my head. I wasn't so much cumming as I was just riding crest after impossible crest.

Adoran drew his tongue free and threw his head back.

His howl split the air and I felt his balls twitching against my chin as he began to pump cum down my throat, into my belly. My eyes closed and I moaned softly -- wriggling and twitching and loving it.

And

BLIP

I was floating. Liquid slurped past my nose, my ears. Popping sounds in my ears. Hissing sounds -- glass sliding down after the liquid. Gravity. My knees pressed to the floor and my palms pressed to the floor and I retched. Blue liquid came up and out of my mouth as I drained my lungs and stomach with wracking, coughing gasps. Bits of something unidentifiable floated around the blue -- but it was slurped up by the grated floor. I shivered and trembled and my entire body felt clammy. The shock of what I had been, uh, doing and now was...was...

I looked up.

Thale looked down at me. He was clad in his mask, his gloves, his cape. He was actually tugging his glove tighter. His voice was cold and detatched. "We're here," he said. And then, to his left and to his right, were two shocktroopers. One held a pair of handcuffs.

I coughed again. "Couldn't have waited five minutes..." I mumbled.

"No," Thale said.

Guilt gnawed at my gut.

And then handcuffs snapped around my wrists and I was jerked to my feet.

EUDAIMONIA

I'd heard legends of the Hegemonic homeworld. Walking from the landing port to the pyramid shaped Temple of the Machine gave me plenty of time to look out at it -- and the legends had been tame compared to the sheer splendor of what the Hegemony had wrought on this world. What had once been deserts and warring tribes had become an endless sprawl of immense skyscrapers -- and not the sterile coldness of Masque Macabre. These skyscrapers thrummed with life. Skycars flew in arcing, winding paths between them, threading like arteries through some vast body. People walked and hurried and ran along slidewalks that connected scraper after scraper.

People by the millions.

People by the billions.

In that one glance, I swore I saw more people than I think I had in my entire trip along the Chain.

Then the shocktroops started to march me across the bridge that led from the landing port to the Temple. I was dressed, fortunately. But I wasn't dressed well enough for the harsh, biting winds that swept across the unprotected walkway at this altitude. My skin broke out in goosebumps and my ponytail snapped to my left as I walked. When I glanced back, I saw that Thale and Adoran were both following me. I felt a tiny pang of disappointment. In the real world, Adoran was...well, he was handsome enough.

But he was handsome in Hegemonic lines. Blond. Blue eyed. Broad shouldered.

He could go maskless.

I looked forward as we walked, my jaw tightening. I didn't know what was waiting for me. But I had a feeling that...I had reached Adoran. And if I had reached Adoran, I had reached Thale. And maybe, just maybe, the Emperor had bitten off more than he could fucking chew.

I did close my eyes once we came to the entrance of the temple -- a broad set of automated doors that slid smoothly open to reveal an empty elevator. As the elevator started to trundle upwards, I prayed.