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Not all wounds were easily waved away with a spell, nor would a potion knit flesh together- especially not when the blade that rent the flesh in the first place was cursed. Halsin and Shadowheart both had assured her that between his poultice and enough of calling upon Shar for divinely-fueled healing power, she’d be on the mend in no time… which to them amounted to at least a tenday. A single day off sounded extravagant, but ten felt more like a prison sentence. The only saving grace to the entire situation was that Halsin’s poultice had some very strong pain-relieving plants in it that made her feel rather wonderful.
He had changed her bandages this morning, in fact. Another point of contention between herself and her healing-inclined companions: the wound was on her abdomen and required she be practically immobile, which she was none too happy with. They shouted her down for so much as trying to walk into the treeline for a halfway-private piss. Halsin had made sure since that first day to layer the salve on thick after cleaning the wound; she’d breeze away most of the morning before realizing they’d gone off without her.
Well, she wasn’t ever alone. Shadowheart had remained for several days, but today the party had required both the druid and the cleric. The camp was marvelously empty (of even Astarion, who had annoyed her to near-tears and debilitating fantasies of murder while she was forced to lay there and listen to him), save for Gale, who had been assigned her babysitter. It was a double-sided coin, for Dubhsláine: the things he talked to her about were much more interesting when he did talk, but he spent most of the day poring over some new dusty tome. This meant she was able to spend some highly sought after and much appreciated alone time with her lover at very little expense- minus the cursed wound, of course.
She had emerged from her morning fog to his presence at the end of her bedroll, his back pressed up against the rock that served as the rear wall of her makeshift tent. He hummed in acknowledgment as she stretched, lowering his book to look up at her with a smile. “Hungry, my dear?”
“Nnh- no. Thirsty.”
He conjures a translucent hand that rises from his own and zips away with a flick of his wrist. It leaves a smear of acidic blue sparkles across her vision that she blinks away, finding him smiling bemusedly at her. He looks unbearably handsome when he smiles, the wrinkles around his eyes deepening and his laugh lines dimpling. Gale laughs and says “Is that so?” and Dubhsláine realizes she’s been muttering about how beautiful he is.
“Mmh, the word you used was handsome, but I’ll accept beautiful too.”
“Shut up.” she whispers. He shakes his head, but she’s saved from a verbose retort by his mage hand returning with a waterskin.
Gale helps her sit up with a hand behind her back, low and steady against her hip where the exit wound has already scabbed over. Still, she hisses and winces, and leans into him heavily as he helps her drink. He fusses over the furs behind her before easing her back, and spends a moment sitting at her side, delicately laying his hand over her abdomen. “I could put you to sleep, if you’d like.”
She glared at him and he raised his hands in defeat, retreating once again to the end of her bed. In a profound act of laziness, he retrieved his book with his mage hand and crossed his arms, instead using the conjuration to turn the pages. Dubhsláine shifted down on her pile of blankets and stretched her feet into his lap; she was rewarded with a smile that curled at the edge of his mouth.
“Will you read to me?”
He raised a brow. “Really? It’ll be very wizardly, you know. Should I expect sorcerous quips about a misunderstanding of the Weave?”
“Undoubtedly. But it’s always nice to hear a different perspective.” There was a squirming that lanced into her temple- unbearable fondness, concern; the depths of an unfathomable, searching hunger, starved for something that was innate to her, something she could not understand being separated from; it stoked the flame of her own desire, lecherous, bloody, and she reeled back -
Gale’s hand on her ankle kept her from scrambling away from him, but it did not assuage her shame. She still had no recollection of where this bloodlust began, and no sight of where it ended. A breath strained behind her breast until she could no longer hold it, wheezing a shaking exhale.
“Apologies, darling.” He squeezed her ankle and tugged her pointedly back down the cot, until both of her feet were in his lap. He said nothing else on their tadpoles’ exchange, but instead cleared his throat and began reading from his book. Whatever section he was on currently was extolling the processes of alchemical solutions, which hardly held her attention, but at least distracted her from the dark pool of her thoughts.
What did hold her attention, however, was Gale’s increasing ministrations at massaging her ankles. She had not realized just how sore she grew from their endless walking and climbing and fighting. And he was only digging his thumbs into the joint in distracted circles, not even putting his full attention towards it. It felt heavenly. She wiggled further into his lap, and he looked at her with humor as his mage hand turned a page.
“Alright?”
She rolled her ankle in answer, until he got the point and more thoroughly applied himself to the task. He dug both thumbs into the arch of her foot and massaged in opposing directions until she melted. Her toes curled and she hummed with pleasure as he worked away the tension she had fallen into. Again she watched him, though this time with her teeth firmly planted against her tongue: his profile in repose, his sonorous voice as he read, the shift of the muscles in his arms as he massaged her all filled her with a warm affection. They hadn’t much time to themselves over the past month, only moments here and there for stolen kisses and heated, whispered flirtations.
As her mind wandered, he set one foot down and moved to the other. She stretched again languidly and moaned appreciatively at his attentions. He shifted, minutely, and her abandoned foot slipped into the cradle of his lap- and felt his cock twitch, half-hard between his thighs.
Dubhsláine brightened immediately. “You know, we are alone…”
“Yes, and you’re convalescing from being impaled. It’s a natural occurrence that will go away on its own; pay it no mind.” Gale chided.
“What if I want to mind it?” She pouted, angling the arch of her foot to press against him. He shifted again, and she was delighted to find him blushing. The last time they had been together had been weeks ago, a fumbling tryst on the bank of a pond they’d all stopped to bathe in, after the others had wandered back to camp. He was slow with her, with both of them, his trepidation at overexciting the latent fragment of Weave within him lending to precise lovemaking. She projected the memory through the tadpole: the soft scraping sensation of moss under her breasts, the prick of rock against her thighs, the slick trickle of hot cum on her leg as he pulled out. He inhaled sharply, and she felt his cock fill out with further interest.
“Seems you don’t mind, either.”
“Minx.” He muttered, voice so low it made her cunt pulse with arousal.
She brushed her foot against him again, and he grabbed her ankle once more, rougher even than when he had dragged her down the cot. “Áine.” Gale murmured warningly.
“ Kineshta, ” she demurred, “don’t you want me?”
His eyebrows pinched; it was his thinking face, and it would only last a moment before he began to rave. She pushed against his grip to tease her foot up his straining length, earning a surprised, low moan. There was a flutter of paper and a thump as his concentration wavered enough for the book to fall through the spectral hand holding it aloft. She let her other foot slip from his lap and the cot alike, and dragged it up his leg. There were no more token arguments; Gale sat dutifully at her heels and grew more and more flushed.
“You like this.” Dubhsláine said it with a hint of accusation, though she couldn’t deny she did as well. There was something about having such a delicate body part underfoot, a dizzying rush of power that fed the yearning creature within. When she reached the crux of his legs and felt him again- achingly hard and hot, now- she couldn’t help but to press against him harder than before. His hips rose against her foot and he made a noise so wanting, so debased, that it made her throb in commiseration.
“Yes.” He finally whispered.
“Take off your pants.” She lifted her chin with the command, feeling a rush of pleasure when he complied with dizzying quickness. Their arousal felt like a feedback loop, every action like water on a greasefire. His knuckles brushed against the ball of her foot as he undid his laces, his hands almost shaking, and she felt her nipples tighten. Eyes with pupils blown wide and dark with desire fell to them, and she found herself squeezing her thighs together in response. He took himself in hand with a pleased hum, and stroked himself slowly; she felt a drop of wetness seep through the top of her stockings.
“Anything else, my love?”
“Jumper too.” She wanted more, to see him grow harder and wetter as she teased him. She pressed the heel of her foot against the base of his cock and ground it between the fabric of her stockinged-foot and the crease of his thigh. What a vision he made, all spasming fingers and red-faced wonder as he pulled up the worn purple fabric. It fell to his feet in a susurrous puddle, and there he was: sloppily undressed, flushed down his chest, the drooling tip of his cock peeking out from under her toes. She rubbed him in the facsimile of a stroke, and it only made him moan and dribble more pre-cum against her.
“ Filliken ,” she murmured, wry. Certainly he couldn’t get any redder, but she saw the rounded tips of his ears pinken.
“My command of the old tongue is lacking outside of the academic, but I’m fairly sure you’ve just called me- well, that is- nnh-!”
One of his hands returned to her ankle, holding her close as he ground up against her. They hadn’t slept together very many times, but she was still amazed to realize she had never seen him quite so aroused. His nipples, dusky and hidden beneath a generous dusting of chest hair, were pebbled, and she wanted to bite them to see how they would feel in her mouth; to see what kind of noise it might draw from him. When she slipped her other foot lower and pressed hard against his balls, he loosed an unabashed moan- it was high and wanton, and he turned toward the wall, eyes closed and face drawn tight with arousal.
“Gods, you really do like this, don’t you?” She slipped her hand under the hem of her breeches, only ghosting her fingertips over her wet slit. Gale swallowed audibly.
He made a sound like he might protest, but his eyes cracked open and instantly zeroed in on the movement of her hand beneath her smalls. She smirked at him, and at the same time slid a foot up either side of him, stroking him indulgently. He swallowed again, his tattoo undulating as his throat bobbed. Dubhsláine wanted to sink her teeth into his flesh and feel it tear, taste the salt of his blood- but she settled for this, the inarticulate and rough strokes and grinds of his cock between her feet and the way it reduced him to near-delirium.
For a moment she thought he might come, holding both her feet still and gasping for air, but he merely regained his breath and flicked his hand; sizzling acidic blue slinked up between her thighs, slipping between them unhindered by her clothing. There was no teasing intent behind these touches: the spectral reflection of his hand shoved two thick fingers inside of her, and she cried out.
“I’m not the only one. You’re veritably soaking through your smalls, darling.”
The twinge of pain in her stomach when she tried to roll against his probing stilled her. She was as much at his mercy as he was at hers, and it flustered her terribly. She could not raise her knees to hide from him, or roll over; and she certainly could not muffle the trembling moan she emitted when the hand’s thumb undulated over her clit. Gale rose to his knees and leaned over her prone form to hook his real hands under her waistline and begin tugging her clothes off. It was dizzying to see the mage hand between her thighs, and even more so the string of arousal that stretched between her skin and smalls. Gale made a low noise at the sight of it, and ripped her pants down even faster.
As soon as one leg was free, she returned her foot between his legs, teasing over his leaking tip. Wet stockings had never been so pleasing; he was practically dripping for her. Once he’d bared her entirely he gingerly spread her legs and leaned down to draw the flat of his tongue up the length of her cunt. They moaned in synchrony. He shifted back and parted his own thighs, and reached between them to lay the length of his cock across the arch of her foot, rolling his hips against her as he leaned back in to devour her.
“Gale-!” She delved a hand into his hair, shuddering when it made him growl. He had not dismissed the hand, but instead was using it to stuff her full, a third finger pressing in alongside the other two as he pointed his tongue and flicked it over her clit. His own hands he slipped under her top, cupping her breasts and scraping his nails over her nipples. When she tugged on his hair he looked up at her, eyes wild and molten. Her arousal glistened on his upper lip. While she held his hair taut in her hand, he used one of his own to settle across her pelvis, pushing down gently to expose more of her clit. He suckled it noisily, and she twitched all over, down to the foot he was rutting against like a beast. The resultant moan made her tighten around the fingers inside of her, and pushed out more slick against his mouth. Yet again they were nothing more than kindling for one another, a blaze reaching its flashpoint. She wanted them to set each other alight; she wanted to taste the smoke and burnt flesh on the back of her tongue.
She felt his fingers curl into the meat of her thigh before the hand inside her mirrored the motion. A sweet ache lanced through her core, ebbing and returning with each undulation of his fingers. She held his hair out of his face, and he rewarded her by sealing his lips around her clit and sucking hard. His eyes burned into her, flamed across her body like brands- if she didn’t know better she’d think he was dragging a flame-wreathed hand over her stomach, up along her peaked nipples. The eye contact had her clenching, and another long and sloppy-loud suck had her shattering apart with a gasp. Gale worked her through it, the fingers massaging deep inside her, the flat of his tongue laving over her clit which throbbed in sympathetic time with her racing heart.
While she regained her breath, he gentled his mouth. The pace of his hips had slowed from frenetic to languorous rolls. From this angle, she could watch the muscles of his ass and back clench with blatant hunger. She pushed him away when her legs began to tremble, and he laid his cheek atop her thigh. His panting breaths ghosted warmly over her mound, and he left wet kisses across her skin as he slowly lost himself to his own pleasure. She had never seen him quite so undone, for he never allowed himself to be. When she scratched her nails across his scalp he moaned quietly.
“Are you going to come for me, beautiful?” Dubhsláine asked him, and he tucked his face against her skin with a sound akin to a whine, full of need. She made to slip both feet back into his lap, to stroke him to completion, but he reared back with a sudden growl.
“No.” He pressed her thighs apart again and turned his gaze upon her center: wet and sloppy, still blushed with arousal. She found she could not move, his grip was so tight. Her heart galloped in her chest and her clit twitched at her apex with renewed interest. Gale looked as if he might consume her, more than an act of lechery; such an intense stare was reserved for problems or enemies that were best solved with a spell that rent flesh from bone. “Let me look at you like this,” he finally murmured. “Let me see what I do to you.”
It was her that swallowed loudly, this time, and he looked up at the sound to smile at her roguishly. She wondered what he would look like if he let even an ounce of that power he kept at bay out, if she would make a beautiful corpse, or otherwise some flayed monstrosity, boiled under purest magic. Perhaps that was why he did not wish to overexert himself, as it were; just here, just on the cusp, was enough to have her aching and desperate, feeling like an insect under careful inspection.
Dubhsláine had to break the eye contact, lest she give voice to her wretched thoughts. Their tadpoles- or at least, hers- squirmed in discontent at the mental block she erected between them. There were more important matters at hand, like the way he was stripping his cock at a near-violent pace, droplets of his come splattering across her ankle with every pull.
“You’re twitching, you know.” He rasped.
She looked back at him, startled.
“Your cunt.” He clarified, and she felt her skin flush from roots of her hair to the base of her neck. “Do you need me?”
Yes , she thought, delirious. Yes, always. You make me feel real. You make me feel like I can want awful things- like I can want them, and have them, and somehow still do good.
“I want…” Her gaze betrayed her, falling again to his cock, nearly purpling with need. He was so slick it made her mouth water. “I want you to come on me.”
Gale groaned and his hips bucked, as if without his permission. “And you called me-“
She moved the leg he was not holding down, swiftly grinding against the base of his cock. His balls were heavy and tight, and his hand caught on the downstroke, and then he was spending across her foot, just as she’d hoped for, in long, hot ropes. He made wounded noises as he did, a little whispered and disbelieving Áine thrown in on a desperate inhale. It was clear his orgasm had taken him by surprise. He looked utterly debauched, hair askew and clinging where his skin was damp, his stomach trembling with aftershocks, his eyes dreamy and dazed. He stroked himself to the edge of oversensitivity, hissing and whimpering just-so before tearing his hand away and lilting heavily toward the wall.
She laid her hand overtop his, which was still (albeit loosely) gripping her thigh. He hummed, first in affection and then in annoyance when she tugged on him.
“I am not laying with you, Áine. With our luck and proportions I’ll undo all of our esteemed druid’s work.” He slipped away from her, then, clicking his tongue at her obvious pout. “I’ve already made such a mess of you. I’ll be but a moment.”
He gave her a brief, chaste kiss before pulling his trousers back on and ducking out of her tent. She lay there with his spend absorbing into and cooling the fabric of her socks. It was far less arousing, now, but she did not have the wherewithal to spell it away. Gale disliked her doing so, regardless. The thought made her grin.
“Having devious thoughts again, my dove?”
Gale had returned with a rag and jug of water, and fresh leggings that looked plucked from the clothesline. He was all easy smiles and a soft laugh, but something like… something like nostalgia dripped frigidly down her spine at his words. She tried not to let it show on her face, managing a smile that seemed to placate him as he went about cleaning her up. He’d never called her that before, dove , but it felt so familiar. Amongst all her memories, blood-drenched as they were, the warmth of light and life that the nickname carried seemed out of place.
He drew her from her thoughts with another kiss, this one deep and intimate, his calloused hand tracing the long curve of her ear. He cleared his throat and rested his thumb against the hollow of her throat- she thought of square palms, smooth skin, the threat of choking but not pressing, not squeezing, just holding - and laughed a bit wryly at her intake of breath, blessedly misreading her reaction.
“I don’t know whether to thank you or apologize profusely.” He admitted.
She bit her lip. “How about we call it even?”
He raised a hand and pointed an accusing finger at her. “I would agree, however, you’ve been holding out on me. For having a spotty memory you sure do know plenty of Elven, my friend.”
She blinked up at him and cut him a grin. “Well I am an elf.” This could, of course, mean nothing; there were plenty of elves that did not know the old tongue. Still, Gale laughed.
“Quite true.”
“Besides, I thought you only knew the scholarly.” She raised a brow at him. He finally sat beside her at the head of the cot, an idle hand running through her hair.
“Mm no, I said my experience was mostly limited. You are forgetting that in the pursuit of language, what one learns first is often the most vulgar.”
“Is that so?” She rose to prop herself on one elbow, steadfastly ignoring the throb of pain in her abdomen. She laid a palm on his cheek, stroking the curve of his tattoo. He was so… human. So flawed, but so strangely beautiful, from his sunspots to his wrinkles. Dubhsláine dragged a nail along the neat edge of his facial hair. “Is that what you wizards get up to, calling each other dear and whore ? Another bastardization Tel’Quessir , hm?”
Gale nearly barked with laughter and pinched her at the dip of her shoulder where it met her neck for her insolence. “What did I say about sorcerous quips?”
“That you had come to expect them!” She falls back upon her pillow, giggling despite herself. When had the last time she giggled been? She cocked her head and crooked a finger at him, until he leaned in once more, brushing his mouth against her jaw.
“Yes?”
“How about this,” she asked, sneaking her own hand into the hair at the nape of his neck. “ Ai armiel telere maenen hir. Did they teach you that one?”
His breath caught in his throat, and he pulled back to look down at her. They were so close she could see the striations in his irises, the gentle flecks of bourbon and honey and autumnal earth that coalesced into such a robust, beautiful brown. “Yes, I believe I… I believe I know that one.” His throat clicked when he swallowed. “Do you…?”
Dubhsláine nodded before he could finish his sentence.
He exhaled and pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth. “And you mine, my love.” He murmured there.
She held Gale’s face in her hands while they traded a gentle kiss, both of them equally warmed by the confession. And when he tucked her into a hug, her face pressed to the curve of his neck where he was still sweaty and smelled of sex, she pushed aside the thought of other hands, of another voice. That was her old life, the one that craved to tear flesh with her teeth. But here, she resisted. Could resist. It had to mean something. She stroked Gale’s hair absently, and instead of digging her teeth into his skin she worked her nails through the snags in the strands.
Yes. It had to mean something.