“Wow.”

I lay panting on the soft grass of the clearing, awash in the afterglow of my climax. My eyes wander lazily across my body. Glimmering beads? I brush my hand along one arm, carrying sweat and possibly other fluids away with it.

Ah. Not fairy oil, or whatever substance Lily has coated herself with.

“Just...wow.”

I can feel a smile on my lips that refuses to go away. I feel fantastic. Tired and in need of rest...but also far from exhaustion. I feel far more like I’m in need of a break between heats, than I might feel at the end of a long day of training…

Come to think of it, I did spend most of yesterday training. Couple that with the stress of the Fae, the fight and other activities we’ve gotten up to, and the small hour of the night?

It’s odd that I feel as alert as I do. Perhaps a side-effect of my transformation?

Lily stands, or rather floats, ‘standing’ above and looking down on me. She’s breathing heavily as well, still glistening with the oily substance she had coated herself with and visibly flushed.

“How is it you fare; My fair knight of sweet summer; On this night so queer yet delightful?”

It’s a new rule of dialect. I almost say something about it. The comment on my lips before I recall her earlier words. I belatedly realize she’s asked me a question, a subtle smirk decorating her lips, no doubt at my own distraction.

“I feel…” actually, how do I feel? Behind post-release bliss, I can still feel the fire within my core, greedy for yet more. I’m also aware of the sticky sensation all over my everything, which for the moment at least trumps that persistent but dull demand.

“I feel amazing, but also like I want a bath.”

A cicada laugh.

“Your route is simple; See the root of flaura near; Their sweet drink which flows to sea beyond.”

I puzzle over her words for a moment, but her meaning is plain enough. The creek is right there. If I want to wash up then go and do it.

I pick myself up, stumbling just once on still slightly shaky legs, glancing at the remains of my clothing before deciding to leave them behind. It’s a warm enough night and, if anything, Lily is more intimately familiar with my body than I am.

That thought sent a shiver down my spine, stoking the heat in my core by degrees and, I notice now that I’m vertical and not otherwise distracted, accompanied by another dampness which trickles down my thigh.

It’s a pretty distracting sensation, but this time I manage to keep my hands off of myself while I pursue the stream.

It’s only knee deep at its center, cool but not cold. In the middle summer it would be divine and now, even on the cusp of the transition into the warmer season, it is pleasant.

Lacking cloth with which to scrub, I curl up into a ball and allow the clear waters to run over my whole body for a time. When I come up for air, soaked, longer hair sticking to my back and shoulders and breasts in an unfamiliar way, I see that Lily had come over as well. She is apparently content to be coated in that oily substance, and doesn’t seem to feel the need to bathe. Instead she lounges above the stream on a cushion of air.

Watching me with lazy interest, letting her eyes roam where they might.

Why does that stoke my inner flames?

I try my best to ignore her. Or at least that’s the excuse I make to myself, as I began to massage my muscles in the water. Both to remove tension and to help work off sweat and other liquids. If I put any theatrics into the process, well, it’s just to please my own curiosity with my still very new body. Right?

I know self-denial when I hear it, but I’m in no state of mind to confront that particular bushel of apples. 

Working my fingers into sore muscles though? It feels divine. It reminds me of how soft my skin is in a whole different way from the delicate caresses of my earlier activities. And it lets me confirm for myself that, though hidden under an unfamiliar layer of fat, my muscles are still just as firm and powerful beneath.

I let myself moan for the feeling, more the deep relief of scratching a long-ignored itch than one of cardinal pleasure, but a very satisfying sound all the same. If Lily likes it as well, and the look on her face suggests she does, well...I can live with that.

Finally, though, I run out of muscles to work. My fingers are oddly still not wrinkly with water, but my mind is wandering to other, more...distracting topics now.

I look up at Lily, still improbably glistening, and ask, “You said you didn’t want to coerce me, because it would take away from the passion of tonight? But didn’t you do just that to force me to realize what I wanted in the first place?”

I had been, I realize, mulling over the question for some time, in the back corner of my mind which processes such things while the rest of me focuses on more immediate concerns.

For her part Lily seems to consider me. She shifts into a cross-legged sitting-up position which does interesting things to my view of her, particularly as she still floats on air above the stones at the stream’s shore. She retains her relaxed posture, though allows the near-perpetual smirk to leave her mouth. Perhaps to ensure that I know she isn’t toying with me.

“You knew not your heart;” she covers her breast with her open palm. Dark vines crawled out from beneath, shrouding her chest in thorns. “No, you had a clouded mind; I mined deep to find what was within." She lifts away her hand and, with it, the black vines burst into verdant green before dissolving into multihued petals which dance in the air around her, slowly drifting to the ground.

Maybe this rule is easier for my brain to process, or perhaps I’m just growing accustomed to Fae metaphor. Whatever the case, I have a pretty good guess as to what she means. It’s honestly a pretty pleasant experience after having to rake my very confused brain over her every word earlier in the night.

“You care more about what’s underneath than on the surface, so...you dug passed my metaphorical walls to find what I had hidden within?”

She smiles, broad and beautiful. I feel my heart accelerate, just a little, and the night’s often present blush returns faintly to my cheeks.

“So…” I begin. Am I really going to say this?

Fuck it. Fuck me. I’m in this far already.

“Umm.” My cheeks definitely grow much redder. “You would be able and willing to do so again. To, umm, force me? If that’s what I truly want or need?”

I manage to maintain eye contact, but only barely. My whole face burns with heat, even reaching down my neck and collar.

This time her mischievous grin returns, and there’s no doubt at all as to the emotions she’s intending to invoke. I resist the urge to shift in place.

“Your cheeks glow quite red; You need not light to be read; Ask and I shall make light your great load.”

Okay then. She’s going to make me ask for it. Part of me, the stubborn part, wants to resist her on principle, to take her demand and throw it back at her. That part is not the logical part of my mind, which quickly points out the abject failure I’d find from trying to take such an approach with a Fae. More pressing is the third, growing fraction of my mind, fueled by the heat of my core and the beating of my heart and the fantasies that play across my inner eye.

There’s only one way this will end. I’ll ask her to give me what I want. It’s only a matter of how long I wait, and how needy I allow myself to become before I give in.

That realization, once again, sends a curious but very pleasant shiver down my spine, from where it fires off sparks of energy along my skin and generously fuels my inner flames. I’m vaguely aware of more moisture beading on my arms, though whether from sweat from my inner heat or remnants from my extended bath, I cannot say. They cause my flesh to glimmer quite pleasingly in a way reminiscent of, though distinct from, Lily’s own oiled form.

It’s almost enough of a distraction to let me delay my response.

I look up to Lily, cardinal and mischievous grin on her face, hoping that my eyes do not show the raw need I feel and that, if my legs shift or quiver, it’s too slight a movement for the Fae to notice while I stand calf-deep in flowing water.

I take a deep breath. I focus on not stuttering.

“Please. Use your powers on me. Wash away my mind until only pleasure and-” I almost whimper, from heat-fueling embarrassment and need.

I take another strong breath.

“Pleasure...and obedience remain.”