Akaso

This chapter contains explicit sexual content. If you find fantasy lesbians offensive, you might want to skip this one.

Her hand came to a stop when Zefaris approached, making no attempt to hide her intentions as she crawled onto the bed. “I’m no coward,” she uttered.

“Oh really?” came a laughing response. “Prove it, coward.”

The Tablet landed on the ground beside the bed with a thud, its projection flickering away just like both their pretensions of restraint. At first, it was no more than Zefaris acting out in an attempt to regain some sort of control, perhaps to try and establish dominance even, and her musclebound counterpart did little to impede that. She explored every trail of silver-inlaid skin, every inch of rock-hard muscle, and even as her hands went places she hadn’t intended them to, Zelsys maintained that aura of unassailable smugness, wordlessly goading her to try and break the facade, and… With her ring and index fingers in the right place and a thumb a little further up, a small motion elicited a brief twitch and an utterly uncharacteristic yelp out of the towering beast-slayer.

The facade slipped for but a moment and she was right back to that insufferable smirk, but Zefaris wasn’t blind or deaf. She heard Zelsys breathing more heavily, saw her face flushing red and her fingers briefly grasping the damp bedsheet as her nipples stood on end.  She felt the wetness surrounding her fingers as she slowly worked them in a well-practiced motion, her gaze locked to Zel’s, their bodies pressed together.

“Come closer,” Zel commanded in a breathy whisper, chest heaving with every breath she took. Snow-white skin slithered against chocolate-bronze as she shifted in place, and soon she was staring into those silver eyes at point-blank. Silver Fog rolled out of Zel’s half-open mouth like smoke. Before she knew it they had locked lips, her lungs filled with Fog that banished what few inhibitions she had left and amplified the senses tenfold.

Every touch, every movement, every probe of Zel’s tongue in her mouth was felt more clearly than she had ever felt anything before. Zefaris lost herself to the Fog-breather when she felt the fingers of one hand in her hair, just as the other slipped between her legs.

The concepts of personal boundaries and even time itself melted away in their Fog-drunk, lustful stupor. As far as they were concerned the world was this room and them, and they took great care in exploring as they pushed each other over the edge again and again in a bizarre contest of endurance. Zel’s Fog-breathing eventually filled the room with Fog so thoroughly that merely breathing at all renewed the Fog-drunk state, and in their intoxication fingers gave way to tongues, legs locked around each other's head. By the end of the night, their mutual understanding of one another’s bodies was more thorough than many people’s understanding of their own would ever be. 

He had done it. He had to weather some slurs and act far less patriotic than he was, but he had done it. Makhus had secured a rental contract of Riverside Remedies, and with money to spare from the down payment!

Stepping into the inn and turning his gaze towards their table, he saw first and foremost Sigmund’s bearded visage smiling back at him, mug in hand as the bearded historian continued to slowly and methodically inch closer towards drunkenness. He took a seat, silently drinking as he mentally checked out to get some of the stress of kowtowing to bureaucrats out of his system. They caught him up on the situation, though he was so mentally exhausted from even this short errand that he had to repeat the information in his head to make sure he remembered who would get which room.

He wasn’t exactly paying attention to the exchange that took place between Sigmund and Zefaris, but he got the general gist of it. “I’m gonna hit the sack a lil’ early,” he excused himself when he felt the liquor settling, rising to his head.

“G’night,” Sigmund rumbled. “I’ll finish this pitcher n’ do the same.”

Key in hand up the stairs he went, but something gave him pause when he passed by the room numbered four - the same number on the key that the barkeep gave to Zefaris. He briefly heard strange noises from beyond the door, and thought that the two might be fighting when he noticed thin, mostly-dissipated strands of Fog creeping under the door. Makhus stopped and listened, ear against the door, readying himself to bust in there to pry them apart in case they really were fighting. 

There were certain techniques he could use without uttering a single word, and among these was a technique that had saved his life many times. “S.S.S.S. Arts: Auditory Enhancement!” he thought.

With just a small amount of Rubedo, he could hone one of his senses to a bleeding edge - one sharp enough that, even through a door as thick as this, he clearly heard noises that were rather clearly not the result of violence, or at least not of the combative variety. He did his best to wipe the memory of the sounds he heard as he quietly stalked away from the door and towards number five. Alas, he soon made the choice to take a bath when he realized he could still occasionally hear a moan through the solid brick wall.

A long bath. At least long enough for the effects Auditory Enhancement to wear off.

Makhus quickly set the heat dial to thirty-nine, locked the bathroom door, shed his clothes, and sat in the bath. Even with the flowing water ringing out against the tub’s copper body, he could still hear them, just barely. And so… He took to singing to himself, reaching for the sponge and soap-stick to begin cleansing himself, both of physical and mental filth.

The first song that came to mind was one that had been drilled into every single Ikesian soldier through constant, relentless repetition during boot camp. “Here's the story of Ikesia, a land both fair and great...” he sang, rubbing the soap shavings into the sponge before he began to scrub his hands and forearms, moving up.