Now that I’ve messed up with Abigail, I resign myself to our prematurely ended conversation and return to Opalina’s company. I find the witch sitting at her desk where a well-lit lantern burns bright. Her outfit has changed into a fuzzy purple robe, and her long, brunette hair is tied back in a scholarly ponytail.

Opalina is going through a stack of yellowish, faded paper that shows their age, unlike her. Her handwriting is unmistakably scrawled across the margins, nearly every inch filled with some sort of magical formulae or alchemical hypothesis that I’d need a lifetime to make heads or tails of.

Opalina looks over her shoulder once she hears me enter the room. “You’re earlier than I was expecting, Dear. Give me a moment.” She starts gathering up the scrambled notes spread out over the wooden desk to put them neatly back into an aged, blue folder with magical symbols etched all over its cover. “I was just going through some nostalgic papers I found hiding in the bookshelf...”

“Anything I would find interesting?”

“Probably, but it seems like you have something else you’d like to talk about. Did everything go alright?”

“I went too far under the excuse of a joke, and it sent Abigail into a depressive mood,” I tell her, dejected. This catches the Mage’s attention, and she tilts her head out of concern.

“Didn’t you tell me you weren’t interested in flirting?” Opalina studies me with inquisitive eyes as she takes the glasses off her nose, setting them down on the desk.

“It wasn’t flirting that set her off...” I sit down on the foot of the bed.

“So there was indeed flirting?” She raises an eyebrow.

“There may have been a smidgen more flirting than I initially intended, but that’s neither here nor there. We were talking about Bertrand, and-”

“No wonder you put her in a bad mood,” She teases, earning a small smile from me.

“Very funny. No, I said Abigail could make him even more jealous by becoming an adventurer and returning to my Guild with me. This lead to her telling me that she and Duke Gloomcrest never leave their rooms and that she doesn’t have any legs.”

“Oh, goodness...” Opalina stands up from her desk and slides the folder of research notes back to the cranny she found it in. Sighing while scrunching her eyes together, she says, “Look, sweetheart. Abigail is a sensitive girl. This wasn’t your fault.”

“She was blaming herself for ruining the mood. Now I just feel bad over it, especially when we were having such a good time before that.”

“You couldn’t have known.” She says in a low, honeyed tone.

“I could have if you told me more about her.”

“Abigail didn’t want me to,” Opalina frowns and folds her arms over her sizable chest. “Talking to new people is hard enough for her as it is, and she worried that you would treat her differently if you knew.”

“Why? Why would she care so much what I think about her?” I look Opalina in the eyes, taking off my own glasses to stare intently. “You’ve colored her expectations about me, clearly, and I want to know exactly how much.”

The doctor sighs as she dwells on my demand for knowledge. “When Abigail first started learning Necromancy, she needed something to motivate her.”

“And of all the role models you could have chosen, you picked me?”

“I tried all sorts of different ideas to motivate her. Abigail was near catatonic at the time. None of them worked... until I told her about a boy I knew who also lost everything, yet who kept on fighting for what he wanted. For whatever reason, your story stuck and Abigail latched on to it. She used the idea of you working your hardest to make her stronger. Eventually, it led her to reunite with her beloved friends.”

“I’m a little overwhelmed to hear all of this,” I grumble and lay back flat on the bed, kicking off my shoes. “You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s just... odd knowing that I helped someone in such a gigantic way without even knowing. Funny, if she actually knew me at the time, Abigail would’ve just seen me for the loser I was. My life is only now on the upswing as of the last few months...”

Opalina gives me a stern expression filled with motherly irritation. “Moving on from your pity party, hooking the two of you up isn’t just me being nosy. I’m only pushing you because the girl wants me to, even if she can’t admit it. Abigail asks about you often, and I’ve offered to introduce her to you many times throughout the years. As you can imagine, she’s never been brave enough to actually do it, but...”

“But?”

“But the look on her face every time I’ve suggested it tells me she wants nothing more.”

The more she talks about Abigail, the more I feel a chord being plucked deep within me. Cynically, I wonder if what I’m experiencing is opportunistic excitement. When hearing that a girl is into me, especially one whose courtship would bring so many advantages, my mind tells me to strike. Yet, this feeling seems less cruel than that. At a glance, it’s similar to the feeling I get when thinking about warm memories of Sam, or Zutiria, or Meri.

Opalina lays back down on the bed and runs her hand to the side of my face. Love echoes out from her delicate touch. “Take your time and push the right buttons, and it wouldn’t take much to win her over is all I’m saying.”

“Abigail mentioned that the Court is desperate to have her get married. Would they even allow a commoner?”

“If the Duke insisted on it, they’d have no choice. He needs an heir. Think you’re up for the task?” Opalina asks half-jokingly.

“Maybe,” I reply, almost without thinking. She caught me off guard, and I said the first thing that came to mind.

Opalina stops idly petting my chest and leans in closer. “Really? Do you mean it?”

“I don’t want to be the Duke of Arrark or anything, but I do want to get to know Abigail better. Think you could conjure up a special way to keep us in contact?” I’d suggest a Stone of Farspeech, but something tells me Abigail won’t be ready for voice chatting by the time I leave. It’s not like there aren’t alternative ways of magical communication, though.

“Funny you should say that, Dear. I’ll look into it tomorrow.” She laughs in a way that makes me think she already has something in the works. Beyond that, she’s full of bliss to see yet another one of her schemes falling into place. “What changed your mind?”

It’s hard for me to vocalize precisely why, but I try my best and speak directly from the heart as I tell Opalina, “A lot of things. Abigail isn’t happy in there, for one. As someone who struggled to leave my house for a few years, I can’t bear watching anyone else go through what I did. If I can provide advice or be the support Abigail needs to potentially help her through this, what kind of man would I be if I did nothing?”

The satisfied Doctor presses her lips to mine, taking me into a delicate, slow kiss that tastes of sweetness. “I’m glad you see things my way,” She whispers after pulling her luscious lips away from mine.

“Gods forgive you don’t inevitably end up getting your way, for once.” I sigh, knowing I was played by this woman yet again. Still, part of me doesn’t mind it all that much when Opalina is the one pulling my strings- in moderation, of course.

“Speaking of getting what I want,” Opalina smirks, her voice low and husky and her eyes half-lidded. “We’ve been fooling around all day, yet we haven’t made love even once...” With a single crook of her finger, she teasingly unveils some of her cleavage by parting the hem of her fuzzy robe. “Isn’t that just a shame? It’s been so long since you’ve had me.”

The carefully picked words of the Sorceress arouse my interest, precisely as she hoped for. “It is a shame,” I agree before putting up my token resistance. “Especially since we don’t have any choice but to do it with a captive audience.”

“Do you honestly care anymore at this point?” Opalina giggles, looking into my clear eyes with hunger in her gaze.

“Not really,” I admit with a sigh while sitting up on the bed and turning to face her. “If Duke Gloomcrest minded, we would surely have been stopped by now. Besides, we both know I could use more practice when it comes to asserting myself. The negotiations are coming up by the hour, and I need to be at the top of my game.”

Opalina likes what she hears. The witch rolls over and then positions me on top of her with little effort. “You know, watching you and Cherry going at it this morning sparked a little something in me...”

“Tell me more,” I stare down at Opalina with confidence, despite hoping with all my heart that she doesn’t mean she wants me to cover me in scratches of her own. Gods know I have enough battle scars as it is.

“You were giving it to that poor cat real good,” The lusty Doctor licks her lips as she remembers the rough pounding I gave my sweet kitten. “From the looks of things, you’ve improved greatly since we were last intimate...”

“That would be when Meri watched us from the door, wouldn’t it? Gods, that feels so long ago...”

“Don’t remind me,” She sighs but moves ahead with her seduction by peeling off some layers of my dress clothes until my shirt is fully unbuttoned. “You have a lot of lost time to make up for, my sweet little man.”

Feeling my blood boil with the need for erotic attention, I reach down to pull on the string keeping her fuzzy purple robe held together. Seamlessly, it becomes undone, and I peel apart both sides to reveal the lovely surprise Opalina had waiting in store for me below. The mature woman looks up at me with her trademark sultry smile, basking in the attention she’s getting as my eyes absorb every last detail of the lacy black negligee she had lying in wait for me when I stripped her.

The skimpy piece of clothing is little more than a seethrough black dress skirt that covers down to her mid-thighs. Both sides of the skirt trail up to her midriff, leaving Opalina’s navel wholly exposed. A bit further north, her dress becomes a laced black bra accentuated with intricate patterns of white, topped off by large white trimmed flowers. The bra struggles to contain Opalina’s voluptuous blessings, so curvy and full-looking, almost like they’ll spill out at the slightest provocation.

“Do you like it?” She coos, as seductive as a siren.

“I love it,” I whisper into her ear while sniffing the sweet fragrance of her curly hair. Nibbling her ear, the witch sighs before her firm yet soft hand rubs against the growing bulge poking out against my dress pants. “Gods, I love it so much...”

Satisfied with my response, Opalina shifts her position a bit and opens up her legs. She wears a lacy black thong that can’t even conceal her tuft of well-trimmed pubic hair. “Good. No more fooling around, then. Show me how much more of a man you’ve become.”

PunishedKom

Even though I said I was feeling better, yesterday I had to do a bunch of errands and the current Patreon chapter was a doozy that I needed to take a lot of time on. If anyone wants to finally hear about Opal's backstory, now would be a really good time to join the Patreon is all I'm saying!

Have a cute little bonus relationship chart thingy I made with my friend!

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