Tragedy of Gold

"I should hope so, it's in your size!" he chirped and turned, laughing. Bart looked down, and hooked it onto his opposite hand, finding it fit flush and snug in place, its engraved heraldry a geometric sphinx of sorts with a balanced scale and honeycomb motif.

"Now, I have far more to celebrate than I did before and it seems there are many who still have much time themselves!" he said, grinning and pushing into the posse of young maidens with a smile; "Have any of you heard the story of the Desert Songstress? It's quite a tale..." he began as they proceeded away down the hill towards the town and tavern.

"The fire in his belly has not so much cooled, as focused," Rashid noticed, and Naima laughed, leaning up to her husband as she rose with him,

"I'm not so pregnant I cannot yet dance, one more time my love?" she invited him, drawing the big man along to where a large bonfire of sorts had started where the maypoles had been taken down as evening approached. Truly, today had been ordained a day of rest and revelry. Away they went, and soon after Lidia and Gram also pulled away, pausing by the Lady and her newly-crowned Consort.

"Aye, dancin' sounds nice, but we're gonna take a wee walk about the town," she said, her fingers laced in Gram's as she bit her lip at him winsomely, "We 'ave a bit o' talkin tae do."

"I'll keep her for the night then, the Abbey's quarters are surprisingly comfortable," he said, and Cithara raised an eyebrow at that in soft protest.

"Why ever for? She is welcome to her place in Bart's home, I will not displace her."

"That'd have been my idea, Lady," Came the low rumble of Bart's father — he and his Mother both coming up the walk, in shirtsleeves and smiles both. Cithara beamed at them both as Eleni came up and once more hugged the little unicorn common as anything, kissing Bart on the cheek. Adelbart continued, "The Words of White are pretty particular about what's expected of married folks, but here in the Heartlands it ain't always sure that proper space is available for intimacy, lots of kin in the same roof and all," he explained, rolling a pipe around in his teeth.

"So, local custom has it that any time a married couple goes to their nuptial bed, the local clergy puts up their kin so they can have the space they need," he said directly, and Bart colored brightly at that. Cithara seemed to be taken by surprise as well, but her response seemed far warmer at once.

"Well..." she said with a smoldering tone, leveling her liquid gold gaze at Bart, "It is a tradition, beloved."

"Father Logan has a nice spot for us here in the chapel, oh I'm so happy for you sweetling," Eleni said, fresh tears in her eyes as she hugged both Bart and Cithara, burying her face in her son's shoulders. Cithara's gaze over his mother's dark, curly hair only grew more heated and desirous as she pulled away, taking Adelbart's free hand again. Lidia piped up anew.

"Naima's a bit distracted on account o' things, but we all wanted tae meet up with ye 'fore ye left tomorrow, an' we all went our separate ways. But I wanted tae tell ye now, Gram and I are goin' with ye up to Fort Ivory regardless."

"Oh?" he said, Bart's parents waving as they left, Bart returning the gesture. Gram nodded, picking up the thread from Lidia.

"Much of my effects are still there, and I would report back to my commander directly to seek leave," he said. Once more, it was Bart's turn to query monosyllabically.

"Leave?"

"Yeah, Bart," She said, looking up at him. "We're goin' tae the East Sidhewoods, an' the Baronies thereabouts. It's Gram's lands an'... about where me Dad met me Mum," she said, squeezing the cavalier's hand, and meeting Bart's eyes.

"We're goin' tae look for her. I need tae know her, Bart."

"Thus, I must request leave so I may accompany my heart of hearts on this journey," he said, raising her hand to his lips and getting a fresh blush of desire from her. Cithara's mood almost seemed infectious.

"A noble journey seeking the truth of one's self. How poetic," Cithara cooed approvingly, her voice like silk, "How romantic, my blessings dear ones," her voice thrummed, drawing a rare smile free of mirth or dryness of wit to Gram's severe features.

"Yeah, there's a lot tae talk about... an' I'm sure you two want tae be alone tonight so..." she smiled at Bart and leaned down, kissing the big Paladin on the cheek.

"I jus' wanted tae tell ye, while spirits were high," she said, pulling Gram along, the tall Darrowmite smiling.

"In truth, she wanted a reason to get away. She seems to be a touch overwhelmed in groups," he teased her playfully, getting a frown from her.

"It ain't tae people it's tae attention, I used tae think I liked it until everyone was lookin' at me for everythin' I did or say," she said, pulling the tall man close to her, and sticking her tongue out at him before smiling at Bart. "I jus' like my new little family best, 'tis all. C'mon ye lanky stud," she cooed at him, pulling him down the road away from the couple. "'Afore ye embarrass me further in front o' the divinity."

Gram waved in his stoic way as he fell into step with his lover, and the two vanished around the bend toward the Abbey, leaving Bart and Cithara alone.

"I think they'll be just fine," Cithara mused warmly, laying herself bodily across her husband, her eyes resting upon his as she melded close to his form like a swatch of glorious hue on a rough canvas. She completed him as such, gave color and dimension to his boundaries, and bled through into his very fiber until she and he were one and the same. Oh, to be painted in her glory so personally, defined by her so intimately.

"Your glory calls good souls to it," Bart murmured to her, and she laughed softly; the sound enunciated over its breathy lightness.

"Oh Bart, it is not just mine divinity that draws them close, nay nor prophecy alone," she said, drawing her hoof in small circles around his belly — her eyes never leaving his, "It is your good, humble heart. I will say it as many times as it takes, and no amount of blushing nor unease will dissuade my judgment in this matter," she said, breathing in time with him now — her eyes an imperious pair of aurum pools.

"I am Queen of Love, and I judge thee worthy."

Her tone was hungry, possessive, and more than anything — final. In any other context, he may have been intimidated by her intensity, but here it felt validating. It made him whole.

"... However," she continued, her tone softening back down to a smokey whisper, "I am not interested in such grand mantles of providence at this moment. I am far more distracted by dreadfully, wonderfully mundane things."

"Such as?" Bart queried her gamely, his wife's look of pleasure as he indulged her delight for verbal artifice rewarding on its own. It only added to the flash of desire that rippled across her features and led her to lay her face in the curve of his neck, breathing hotly over his throat and jaw.

"My husband is an absolute stud," her voice throbbed only for him, its dulcet tone like a gush of hot need washing over him, staining him with its vivid wants, "He is a burly, rippling man in all ways, and I am mightily distracted by my overwhelming urge to be grasped and handled by him, bent and folded and felt-out by his strong, gentle hands." Her breath came damp and inviting on his throat, and that long, lurid tongue slid along his jaw with a needy sigh that followed its tracks up his nape to his ear — where her lips warmly, wetly wrapped around the soft, springy lobe.

Bart had no answer, simply arching his back, toes curling in his boots as she filled his head with a warm, buzzing pleasure. The weight of her slight frame, the warmth of her tongue — the sound and sensation of its movement along his ear mixed with her needy, delighted sighs and a growing heat wherever her silvery coat touched his flesh. He was fully clothed and yet as she worked that nimble organ across his earlobe, he might as well have been naked. Phantom thrills ran through him as she found tingling, tactile pressure points along the rim and curve of the innocent appendage. His belly fluttered with delightful vulnerability and his head swam as the sound blotted out all in his mind but the wet, whispering sigh of lips and tongue. The world dwindled to a single, wet, sticky point: Her. Her. Her.

"Take me home beloved, take me home and make me yours," she moaned in his ear with a need that bordered on pain in her voice. His own smallclothes painfully tight beneath his gambeson and arming trousers — and that was without the visual and tactile aid of her sinuous frame writhing in want like a coil of ivory cream sliding down a palette surface across the broadness of his trunk. Her tongue wound into his ear again, and her voice followed in its absence.

"You have filled my heart — now there is another void that yearns for you..." she hissed through her teeth — teeth that followed that snaking tongue to his ear, tugging at it with those delicate fangs as her body melted away from his. She left him trembling and erect in more than just posture, his swollen ardor visible even with all of the padding in his dress armor. She slunk away from him, her tail dragging along his brawny chest until its silky brush painted him from crotch to chin in a slow, sinuous stroke of such impossible dexterity that it caught his breath in his throat merely to watch — the intense sensation merely extra.

"Come away with me, that I may care for you," she murmured, tail coaxing him along — and flagging up to reveal a criss-cross of those ribbons laying across her flanks similarly concealed her womanhood from his eyes — but only by just the thinnest tease of materials. The heat in his belly rose. He started up after her, but paused, twisting to where his armor and blade lie and she laughed at him,

"Leave them, beloved. Father Logan will see to them, for now, that is a unicorn bare and bold before you," she purred at him, her eyes flashing with lust and love.

"Chase her."

With that she lit away, springing like the earth had special treaty with only her, lightening its grip upon her flesh as she soared away in leaps and bounds. The young Paladin grinned fiercely and took off at a sprint, her silvery laughter echoing past. Off they went, the Crown of the King of Love, and the First Blade lying in silent vigil of their wielder's union. Dormant for now, their tasks done.

~ ~ ~

The pair spilled into his house in a clatter of noise and trilling laughter, the glinting golden eyes of the Lady flashing at him over her sinuous frame as she darted playfully away from him yet again. The two's give-and-take chase down from the church had only served to fan the flames of passion. Bart's borrowed vitality surged in him with every fleeting touch and caress — and once more that silken tail curled beneath his chin, coaxing him forward, wafting her amorous scent towards his nose. He took up the chase once more and she laughed gaily as he laid his hands upon her spare frame — and up she went, into his arms and onto his bed. The last rays of the sun died outside, the twilight casting livid shadows across the scattered shapes of his bedroom and the glistening swathe of divinity that lay smoothed artfully across its tousled bedding.

"My husband..." she crowed at him in a tone that crackled with desire, her eyes drank him in and her tiny chest heaved as she pressed one dainty hoof to his chest as he loomed over her — gently easing him away from her with a tease of her lips to his.

"Undress," she murmured with lusty need, "Show me all of you, let me see you bare but for the marks of our union," she begged, and Bart couldn't find it in himself to deny her. Off came his clothes, and her orbit lit with her eagerness — aiding in the shedding of the lower half of his harness as he undid his own gambeson. He peeled away the upper layer as her eyes drank him in, letting it simply fall as it may as the layers of linen and quilting fell away — revealing his bare chest. She let out a sound of heady desire as her tail curled its leonine length along him, tracing the craggy, slab-like lines of his chest and trunk — gone was much of the softness he'd even just a year prior struggled with. His body instead was a rough, etched edifice of functional brawn, and she quivered as the silk of her brush poured like bright ink down his tanned, scarred flesh.

"So handsome, so strong..." her voice throbbed, writhing with physical pleasure as she drew along that battered, burly torso with the silky broom of her tail. The pleasure was not hers alone, the big Paladin trembling with the ephemeral ghost of her silky mane pouring across him like water, teasing flesh too used to toughness with its tender mercies. Her orbit worked at a fluid frenzy, golden eyes alight with the glimmering power and want as plate and linen alike were laid aside, the cosmic creature drawing herself closer and closer to her lover's rapidly baring body — flowing like cream and honey across the bed to its edge,

"Naught a better example of a man could I ask for..." she breathed, trailing off whilst undoing the laces on his hose with a flourish, a flourish that peeled them aside and bared his aching, erect member to her hungry gaze and equally hungry lips, its length bobbing proudly before her muzzle, drawing an exhalation of needy desire from the unicorn's lusty mouth,

"... Were you made to measure," she concluded, her voice pulsing in a husky whisper just for him — her breath teasing across his eager glans with a promise of warm, wet bliss mere fingerbreadths away. He twitched and throbbed at that, his belly tightening reflexively with want — and the sight lit an approving heat in her gaze as she watched the shaft pulse sensually, her tongue slowly sliding from her lips...

As his trousers and the last piece of harness hit his floor, so too did her tongue slide along his heavy sac, the cosmic creature delicately burying her face in the curve of his hip and groin, letting her mouth map and trace every inch of his masculine aspect — from his heavy balls to the twitching tip of his partially-covered glans. He was so achingly erect that the purple tip of his crown had pushed its way partially free of the foreskin on its own, gleaming with a bead of needy emission.

Cithara's tongue swept that pearl of essence up as she gasped and moaned into his trembling flesh. His hands had found her mane and horn as she indulged — the gleam of his golden ring bright and true against the tan of his flesh and her silvery pelt. Those strong hands grasped and dug into mane and flesh with tender firmness, feeling her impossible form mold and flow beneath him like living liquid — her springy sinew and skin hot and alive with preternatural vigor. She looked up at him, her gaze full of longing as her tongue swirled around the tip of his proud member — yet she did not engulf him as she so decidedly wanted to, her body shook with restrained need as her voice returned with a mewling plea.

"Give yourself to me, my husband."

Her mouth then yawned wide, tongue lolling and lips parting, her eyes searing slits of yellow hunger, blazing past gold to molten fire. Her delicate maw parted in an inviting passage lined with her delicate fangs and sinuous tongue, a passage he eagerly lost himself down — tipping his cock into her hungry lips upon the coiling of her tongue's welcoming pinkness. Then with her eyes' hungry invitation — he firmly pushed it into her suckling maw until she gave a purely lustful groan of tangible, physical pleasure as his length stretched her gamely and put a gentle, lurid bulge in her supple throat.

Her forelegs moved with uncanny dexterity, wrapping around his hips and taut buttocks as she did not so much coax as plead him forward into her gullet. Gulping him down with a hunger that bordered on desperation in its glee, she rolled her eyes back in her head as his thrusts, at last, pushed her nose to his belly, lips sealing with jealous want around the base of his shaft. Her horn brushed his chest, its deadly tip idly brushing just over his heart as she held herself there fully gagged upon his length. The impossible anatomy of her cosmic flesh allowed her to quite clearly breathe through her nose even as she lovingly worked her throat around him, eyes locked on his in strangely supplicating adoration.

"God, something so carnal should not be so beautiful..." Bart moaned at the sight before him, stroking his hands down her face into her mane as he began to thrust, grasping her silvery locks for leverage — a motion that got a fresh moan of pleasure and a quiver of delight from his delighted bride. Cithara seemed intent on defying that assertion as she pressed herself further up his body, stretching her ribbon-clad form like a slick of still-wet whitewash across his bed, glittering with ardor at both ends...

Her lips slowly withdrew, though not before she had given him a long and tawdry show of swallowing him cock to balls again and again — the sounds she made full of delight and eagerness. Oh and the thrusting! How she shook as he bucked forward, a quiver that began deep in her core and expanded outwards — the progress of his length down her gullet measured the intensity of the tremor. Her body was a struck tuning fork, alive with sensual energy — eager to be filled however he wished.

"Oh beloved husband, carnality should always be beautiful," she gushed against his tip in a voice hoarse with hunger, drawing her tongue along his cock's crown again — teasing a fresh moan from him, "Look at you, how it throbs and pulses in perfect concert with your glorious heart..." she moaned in a reverent mewl, "Look at how you glisten, so hard and full... it is beautiful, your want for me is beautiful..." her adoration cut off as she briefly bitted herself with his shaft, her eyes telling the story where her lips left off with three unsaid words forever said in heart and deed: I love you.

He found his needs sudden and demanding, and he surged forward onto the bedding with his divine bride, scooping her up with a sudden chirp of surprise and glee, laying her back in his bedding beneath him. She sprawled out long and lithe beneath his craggy bulk, her tail winding around his legs and coiling up to sweep its brush along his bare arse and back as he gazed down at her. She looked right back, her eyes full of wonder and desire still. A slow, knowing smile spread across her lips as she tucked her forelegs close to her chest and let her head lie back — exposing more of the luxurious length of that alabaster throat,

"Will you stare all night, or will you kiss me as you have wanted to since the altar?" she dared in a low tone, and Bart's answer was an indulgence, plunging his own tongue into her mouth as their lips met, his chest pressed to her own, their scars lying flesh to flesh as he enfolded her in his arms, pressing as much of his naked body to her own as possible as their mouths danced so deeply entwined.

Naturally, he tried to enter her from such an intimate tangle, their bodies pressing together but finding their union blocked. The kiss broke as she laughed softly, drawing that lurid tongue along his chin as she caught her breath in slow, heaving intakes that did interesting things to her lithe frame,

"It appears I am still dressed..." she said, spreading her thighs and showing the little network of ribbons, laying about her like ritual bindings of some tawdry nature in this hungry context, "I helped you with your bottoms... how dare I deny you such a pleasure?" she cooed, and the thin satin barrier twitched visibly as her swollen pearl pulsed it's desire at him from behind the thin, woven fabric. Bart slid his hands down her body, it was an indulgence in itself — truly free of worries since the first time they had lain eyes upon one another.