Snakes and Ladders-8

Chapter 8

It was really faster paced than I wanted or Shaya wanted but at the same time oh my gods this was good. It was running up the stairs of this beautiful wood paneled mansion that I’m sure was all really intricate and everything. But Shaya’s and my lips are locked and we’re bouncing off some of the walls shedding armor and clothes well it’s easier for me but getting Shaya out of her armor’s like trying to get a three year old out of a ski suit.
It’s enough to set me to giggling.
“Erendae? What’s so funny?” She manages to get out between kisses and …oh…Ffff…running her silky smooth hands over my breasts and nipples. I really had a time trying to think with this ripple of intense pleasure running through my breasts and trying to turn my brains to jello.
Some how the reference at that moment was a little too hard to explain, but another though had me giggling. “I’m a woman…now…finally…and I’m still having a hard time getting a woman’s clothes off!”
Shaya descended down into my sex and soon had me crying out. The marvelous thing about being a girl…woman…is that first orgasm isn’t like the end of things for awhile but really…it’s just the start.
First gear just shifted into second.
Third gear finally got Shaya shucked out of her armored body suit.

We enter, spin kind of passionately into a bedroom then crash down on a bed. Oh…yeah…oh god there’s this kind of blanket on the bed it’s like this inch deep plush quilt like somekind of terrycloth that looks like that deep moss on the forest floors of Oregon and…smells like it too but with a sweet underlying scent of pear instead of the earth scent…but there’s just a kiss of that too. And it feels, it feels like somekind of plush fur against my way too hot naked skin….My body face first sort of sliding into that blanket on the bed drives me over the edge as the sensitivity of my breasts goes like sexual lightning into my brain and there’s fireworks as I moan and cry out.

I know this sounds weird and stuff but the sound of my voice my female, really feels…so right to me it does something to me…the feelings rippling, rushing, shining through my body as Shaya’s tongue is inside of me gives answer to this deepest part of myself I’ve always hidden, that was never let out, then as far as all those years and years of hell I lived as Bear…is finally over…and my soul my real soul is singing.

I’m free, I…finally free!

I feel it resonating with Shaya…she’d been through the same hell too for so long and to finally be free, and to finally have somebody to be the real her with…it takes us to heights that neither one of had ever dreamt of. Well we had dreamt of them but the actual reality of us doing what we are doing makes those dreams pale by comparison.

Shaya slides her tongue into my sex and I’m face down, breast down moaning into the bed as she licks then she suckles and then she grabs one of my legs and moves it. She grinds her slit over and back and over and back of the heel of my foot, like some peopled use somebody’s knee to do the same…pleasuring herself…moaning literally into me. I swear I can feel the vibrations of her voice inside of me…then she hugs herself to me grabbing me by my hips and does that thing where you fold your tongue into a tube or…well you know what I mean and in the position I’m in…my hard little love nub rests in that channel and she starts to run her tongue and all…those …tiny…bumpy...taste buds over that oh too sensitive area and pushing me back and forth over her tongue groove like we’re having bump and grind sex….I lose track of the shooting crashing waves of ecstasy…I actually end out crying out…”Stop….” Because I was just spent, exhausted and was panting like a racehorse. She does after I hear her own pleasured cries and we fall into a heap with her on top of me.

It takes a few minutes before she slides up to spoon with me and wrap her arms under mine and play with my breasts. I get my wind back and quickly roll over and pin her by her arms to the bed while kissing her.

My turn.

This is where I have the advantage if those things count here. Yeah Shaya’s older than me but I’ve been married, I’ve been with women before and I know what to do. My girl is inventive but I’m experienced. And her silken sylvan skin is much more sensitive than mine. Shaya is very easy to get panting and squirming as I slowly and very, thoroughly perform French kisses to her nipples and gently squeeze her perfect little breasts and kissed her, long and slow and sweet lingering kisses.

Then I move a hand down to her sex and rub gently but insistently as my fingers slide over her labia and drive her deeper and deeper into this moaning whimpering heat. I love hearing her calling out. “Yes, yes, oh, please Wren yes. Oh please, Erendae yes…”
My palm facing upwards I sink my middle two fingers into Shaya…my sweet Shaya and I let the space between my fingers mirror what she did to me with her tongue. The skin of my knuckles rubbing into her and the pads of my fingers caressing the top of her depths in a come hither gesture…she rides my hand…my outer two fingers can’t help but to keep rubbing her labia as I keep it up and as my middle two fingers are pulling back it makes me press my palm into her.

Shaya is loud and responsive and there is such a rush, a thrill to making her this ancient beauty writhe for me….Andin her like before and she through me I feel he reach that point of being flooded by ecstasy until it reaches this communion with actually and really being the girls, the women we knew we were deep down in our souls.

Her knee has been rubbing into me and I’ve been riding it as I still had been using my free hand and my mouth to make mad, frantic love to her…her peaking like I did pushes me over the edge with her and then I collapse on top of her sweaty lithe yet heaving body.

And after we stop gasping for our breathe we cuddle close just touching each other and we’re both crying a little at the fusion of us…and our feelings and our love and just finally, finally us being really happy, and just being us for awhile.

…………….Shaya is waking me the next thing that I know way too soon. She looks so beautiful though I just had to kiss her for a few minutes. “Bhlaze will be rested enough soon; we should get ready to leave again. You take a few more minutes beloved and I’ll get ready first so I can help you and get us some food.”
“Hmmm, Okay.”
Shaya showers first and comes out getting dried off and kisses me. I’ll admit I fell back asleep in that lazy just being boneless after having sex kind of way. I honestly don’t want to move…but…I’ve worked a lot of jobs where I didn’t want to get up and go back to work or go to work at all kinds of shitty hours and in all kinds of shitty places. It’s with a groan that I slide out of the bed and kiss her. My hair falls messily into my face and as soon as I’m upright I have to go to the bathroom anyway.

Okay as different and as awkward as sitting to pee can be the fact that I’m actually do it makes me smile. Yeah it’s a strange thing to talk about but it’s kind of important to me. It’s a very real thing to feel. It kind of grounds this being real to me and not some dream.

I love showering too, I’m very aware of my body and the feel of the water as it and the suds running off of my body. I’m too thin, I like being thin but I can feel my ribs slightly and my hip bones seem just a little too bony for me. But Kailynn had told me that I’m still replacing what was lost between the dragon’s blood burning me nearly to death and the rest was eaten up by the healing of my body. The only thing I really have that is kind of annoying is my hair. I’ve got a lot of it right now, and it gets really thick and does it ever weigh a lot and it’s hard to dry. I still can’t help but keep in a good mood as the weight of it pulls at me and I can’t help but smile at the way my breasts move and sway as I carefully dry myself off. I will say this; I’m noticing the weight in my back too.

“So, this is what a human female looks like.”
It’s a mans voice in the bathroom with me and it startles me. “Eeee…Mmmrmp!”
I nearly screamed except he cut my scream off as he shot acrossed the bathroom from the open window and pushed me into the wall his hand over my mouth. “Shhush.”
I was glaring at him. He smiled at me. It’s Shaya’s smile but it isn’t, he’s got her raven dark hair and her same sapphire eyes that sparkled with this mixture of mischief and sharpness. He puts his index finger to my lips. “I’m not here.” His eyes run over my naked body, there’s this look in them… “I wasn’t sure what to expect about hearing My Shaya has a bonded. And really not what to expect when I heard you were a human…Kind of like a children’s story given life.” I can’t help but notice how he’s so much like his sister but not. The hair, the eyes the nose they’re the same so much you can tell they’re twins. But he’s got broad male elfin shoulders even more than his other brothers because he looks like he does a lot of hard work. Slender, like a tall male model crossed with an Olympic gymnast…in a sleeveless really fine black leather tunic and black cotton pants that…Oh god he’s…If this was what Shaya looked like before there are thousands of heartbroken sylvan women out there.
“Waddayou doing here?”
“I had to see you, check you out with my own eyes.”
“But you’re wanted, a criminal?”
“Wren…we both know that sometimes the laws and customs mean shit if you need to protect those you love.”
“Yeah, I get that.”
He looks at me. “You’ve gotten to a good start with Lady Kyte.”
“She started it, I don’t start things.”
“You finish them?”
“Usually ends up that way…”
There’s a moment of connection between us that we both just have that in common. “I might be changed but there’s something’s that won’t ever change Jaiden, I’ll die for those I love, no hesitation.”
He stares at me and walks closer and closer until he’s pressed right up to me. I can feel him search my heart as he looks me in the eyes…I can feel it just coming off of him how much he loves his family.
I reach out to him and pull him in and put my forehead to his, stare him deeply into his eyes. “I’ll die before they get to OUR family Jaiden.” He closes his eyes and there’s a slight shaky breath and…he for a second looks so tired lonely and it clutches at my heart, he’s Shaya’s twin. And I see Jaiden do what I’ve done all my life, grab hold of it and shove it down deep just to function.
“I have to go Wren. Keep her safe?, listen to your link, your bond Shaya’s got her hands tied about doing things sometimes with her past, they will watch her like a cat on a mouse hole. Use her feelings to guide what you’re going to do. You’ll be able to act sometimes where she won’t dare. I have to get going, It’s not safe for me to be out and about in the daylight, not here at least.”
He hugs me and gives me this tender kiss on the cheek. “Tell Shay I love her?” and with that he dives out the window. I can’t help but run to the window-sill and watch this very large raven winging away from Lilac house.
I’m watching what I’m sure is Jaiden winging away out of sight when Shaya bursts in through the door armor on and sword in her hand. “Wren!…” She’s beside me so quickly and pulling me from the window and wrapping her sword arm around me protectively. “Are you okay? I felt you get scared…and you yelled.”
“I’m okay, Jaiden snuck in here to see me.’
“What!, Jaiden…” She rushes to the window herself but I know he’s already gone.
There’s a moment of silence then she turns around, there’s tears there. I step over and pull her to me by her wrist then reach up with both hands and wipe the tears away with my thumbs.
“Why…Why was he here?”
“He wanted to check me out.”
“Why?”
“He heard things I suppose, he wanted to make sure you’d be okay with me. He wanted to make sure his sister was safe.”
“But…but why? I mean why doesn’t he come back to us. We could fight all the charges pressed on him.”
“He knows he can do more good where he is Shay.”
“I don’t understand, Why? He’s a good man and to be surrounded by those kinds of people…”
“Shaya.” My voice gets a little serious, yeah she’s done bad things but they’re still a noble, a rich girl once rich boy and she doesn’t get… “Listen, Shaya…You’re the black sheep of the family far more than he is. To those kinds of people Jaiden left the land of milk and honey to be with them rather than compromise his honor. You’re still under the eye of the courts.” Shaya starts to say something but I put my fingers to her lips. “Jaiden knows that people like Lyam use the darker parts of society to do the things that he’d done and what he might do in the future. He’s walking in those places, a rebel, a criminal and a turncoat. He’s undercover (Shaya looks confused.) he’s living and working behind enemy lines Shaya.”

“But why hasn’t he told us this?, Father this?”
“Because he can’t, not yet. It’s too dangerous for him, for you, for anyone who aids him.”
Shaya hugs me and settles her head into my breasts. “I’m scared for him, I love him.”
“He loves you too, Shaya. Trust me Jaiden loves his family very, very much.”
I hold her for a few minutes before pushing her back and kissing her.
“We’ll get through this…But I need to get dressed I’m getting cold now.”
Shaya looks up at me. “I’ll help you get geared up.”

We’re getting dressed when she looks at me. “Wren?”
“Yeah Shay.”
“Thank you.”
I pull her into a kiss and smile at her. “I love you; You don’t have to thank me for that.”
“Yes I do Erendae, I really do.”

We kiss for awhile before heading down the stairs and out to where Bhlaze and the grooms were getting ready to depart I noticed there were several other bags attached to the sky-saddle. One of the older? It’s not a look but something I can sense comes with a tray and sets it on the edge of the fountain in the middle of what I’m calling the driveway.

The food is a little more normal to me with fries and gravy with ground meat in it so it’s kind of like a hot hamburger with the bread on the side. The bread is funny looking it’s like it’s pastry but textured more like a biscuit. I scarf down the food like Shaya is mostly because I’m actually starving. I’m a little leery of eating so much I mean I was quite the size before and…and…Shaya rubs my back and smiles at me mouth full of food, she swallows it in a very unlady like gulp that makes her all kinds of cute.
“Don’t…Wren, don’t go there. You need the weight first of all because you’re not elfin and you need more of you on you. And secondly honey? (She’s got an odd look on her face as she just tried on one of my/our/human phrases. Then nods.) You’re going to work it off. Trust me.”
She leans over and kisses me and rubs my back still. It feels nice, not just the rubbing but her knowing I was going through something and making me feel better just by feeling it. It feels really, really good to be cared about like this. And the kissing is really, really nice too. I think why we seem to be so all over each other in love is partly that new relationship buzz but also just because it feels so good to have somebody to be like this with. It’s been a long lonely life for both of us. There’s been loves in my life before but they never knew about Wren. I was never the real me with them. I was going to give her another kiss but Shaya steals a three fingered pinch of the fries off of my plate. I love that innocent yet impish girl look she gives me. You know the one where the girl steals your fries just like back home. There’s this something sparked up alive in her eyes because it’s such a “Girl” thing to do and she’s never done it before.

I can’t really tickle her in that armored bodysuit of hers so I scoop a hand down onto the fountain pond and splash her. She squeals and tries to duck it but I got her and then she’s splashing at me and soon we’re running around the fountain pond laughing and squealing and giggling like two teenaged girls. It’s…like there this bright shiny happy thing right in my heart.

Bhlaze breaks up our teenager moment with a cough. Oh yeah that claw made into a fist. And just like a person does he’s loudly and pointed coughing.
~Arrrg-Hem!~
We stopped and he does this whole regal neck rise and looking at us both kind of dripping and panting but all smiles. “Yes?” We both ask him in innocent blinking stereo.
~My Beloved’s I’m so sorry to interrupt you’re mating game but I do believe that we do have a job to do.~
Shaya sighs but she’s still smiling as are some of the staff. “I know, and He’s right Love we should get going if we wish to make good time.”
I smile and use a bit of my jacket to dry…ooooh a servant with towels for both of us. I take it and smile. “Thank you, this was very thoughtful of you.” The man nodded and smiled at me. Shaya thanks him too and calls him Ambrose. I give him back the used towel and tell him. “Again thank you Ambrose, I’ll get Shaya to teach me everyone’s names as soon as I can.” He nods lightly. “That is very kind of you to Lady Erendae.” He bows to both of us and leaves taking our food tray and our dishes at the same time.

I’m not sure if I’m ever going to get used to the whole servant thing.

It’s not too long before we’re mounted back up and strapped in. Bhlaze does that strange thing he did to shed the physics around him as he coils and springs several hundred feet into the air like he just decided he was going to not follow any rules about his mass or little things like gravity. It’s a rush, all that sudden upwards rush. His wings snap out and we sail out over the city and catch a thermal and like a kite we get a whole lot of air really fast and sort of side slip up and over the city, we bank around the huge mass of the great tree and almost skim it using the way the air rushes over it’s sort of surface to catch an air current headed east.

***
Something like six hours later and we’re still in the air. I love flying on dragon back but the romance is wearing really thin. One, it’s cold, or it is for me, it’s cold up here. Two The dragon moves…it’s muscles still move under you, and my legs hurt from hanging on even if it’s for short spans when we bank and stuff, my entire waist hurts from my back to my sides to my ab’s because I’m not used to moving like this. A dragon is serpentine in the air so its not so much like trying to stay on a horse as it is trying to stay on a whale with everything moving and twisting and flexing under you. Then try adding thirty five pounds of gear, leathers and chainmail on top of all of that. I don’t whine or bitch or complain. It’s just not in me to do that but it’s not what I expected.

And why so slow? Well we’re probably actually going close to 70mph but both Bhlaze and Shaya are scanning the ground, we’re not just taking these messages around we’re patrolling as we do it. It’s just Highwood is at least 30% bigger than earths moon and Sylvania is about three times the size of earth but has a lighter gravity than a planet it’s size should have but with the longer days and stuff here I’ve got no idea of the science behind that but then again it could also be majik. I mean look where I’m at.

Yeah where I’m ….at.

It first looms up like this dark oil patch on the land and as we get closer I see it. It’s huge; it goes on nearly as far as my eyes can see. It’s sunken in all the way around but these cliffs that surround the entire place for several hundred feet. The dark color is the forest with the size of the trees matching the ones I’ve seen elsewhere in the realm but they are these black, gray or red maples and elms making about half or so of this place and a smattering of other trees and a lot of these black needled pines and spruces making up the other half of the trees they are all covering the land in a canopy but even from here the trees are twisted and freaky looking there are mountains jutting out here or there and you can’t see the ground for the fog and the mist.

The Darklands, former home to the thing that had enslaved the elves and then the armies of The Forsaken. “That’s huge.” And Shaya nods. “The Darklands are nearly what you’d say to be 1300 miles in length and that again at its widest points.”
“That’s like four or fives the size of Texas!”
“What’s a Texas?”
“Texas it’s a place on Earth, it’s a state in my home nation.”
“Is this Texas nice?”
“Sometimes, but it was ruled by a despot.”
“Why did you people allow it?”
“Politics.”
“Oh…Sorry.”
“He even ruled my home nation for a time.”
“A time?”
“Eight years.”
“Oh, A revolution then?”
“I wish, but no we limit the terms of service.”
“It sounds like he was not a service to anyone.”
“Oh, I think he serviced a lot of people.”
“I don’t understand?”
“He sucked a lot of figurative cock to get his way.”
Bhlaze huffed.
~He sounds thoroughly horrid, someone should have eaten him. ~
Did I mention I love dragons?
“Agreed!”
Shaya yells “Hang on!”

We bank in this downward tilt and curve in flight. This is what I love about the flying. It’s such an amazing thing. As we turn we come into view of this really large castle fortress. It’s a quarter mile long facing the bad place and for about a hundred feet in the middle there’s a tower that goes down to the bottom and then rises all the way up to about a hundred feet over the height of the cliff-top, the rest of the fortress is a wall that’s about fifty feet thick, and forty feet high with towers and parapets that rise up twenty more feet over the height of the wall they’re space about a hundred feet apart each.

The rest of the fortress in facing The Holy City and looks like a regular castle with a whole bunch of regular castle type buildings all about two city blocks worth behind a thirty foot wall that’s only about ten feet thick. Beyond that is a small town that is protected by a twenty foot high flagstone wall.

It’s really impressive in a military way with elves in fancy armors of different makes like Shaya wears or in really body hugging chainmail or leathers. There’s these big crossbow things in places on the walls here and there and there…gryphon’s flying in and out of that big main tower. Gryphon’s, real live gryphon’s…of course there’s dragons so why not gryphon’s?

Shaya smiles looking back at me as we slow “Welcome to Rampart Fortress, Wren. This is the main fortress for the defense from the Darkland hordes.” Bhlaze lets out a song like note kind of like a horn, but not unlike a long single whale like note. There’s a lot of eyes on us as we fly and circle over things and we head for one of the roofs of the castles buildings. I can see what looks like several young elves running to the building we’re landing at. It’s roof has a top on it like one of those Greek Parthenon places but with no pillars in the front or the back. We land doing that matrix like kind of slow motion thing and kind of trot inside.

We’re met by elfin youths of both genders dressed in uniforms who all stand at attention with these soft grey pants and tunics with silvery green embroidered vines stuff on the sleeves and military shield patches with the symbol of the great tree on it with a longsword imposed over the tree. It’s on their left shoulder and a round patch that’s different on each, I’m feeling these are the symbols of their houses…Yeah, I’m feeling the ages..? Through Shaya I’m feeling things more, yeah I’m kinda pulling on it from her like Jaiden said and it’s like just sort of knowing something for sure but technically you don’t know. It’s so strange, cool but it’s really the oddest feeling.
Yeah these are elfin kids…between 20 something and 50 years of age, there’s a feeling of teen coming off about them. With the ten kids are two older ones in navy blue in silver embroidery there’s a girl and a boy each and they feel in charge of the others.
I’m not sensing it but it’s hanging in the air the fascination with the dragon and then there’s them finally noticing me.
There’s the fact I’m human because there’s them first staring at my ears and then there’s the staring at my chest. Especially the boys and Oh wow…I can actually see the boys stiffening and trying not to, and trying to stand there at attention and…well they’re definitely at attention. Shaya shoots me this look that’s full of mischief but leans over to my ear. “We can’t…It…would just make us look bad and we need all the standing right now…(I feel her almost lose it when she said standing.)…please?”
All I can do is nod and bite my lip to keep from giggling.
Getting off of Bhlaze takes a lot of that away as my legs and hips protest the abuse of dragon riding. That and I’ve got to shift from foot to foot…I really need to pee.
“Excuse me where can I use the facilities?”
It’s funny because, Me needing to is bleeding over to Shaya and she’s nodding. “Yes, please it’s been a long flight.”
We’re led away to the bathrooms by the senior girl and once we’re out of earshot we explode into giggles and it’s like I’m a teenager, a teenaged girl and It feels good, deep down into my soul good….But I’m really getting the gripe about the clothes and stuff with the layers I’m wearing. Shaya…(Frown) just flips a few catches on her waist and her armor’s crotch/ panty area unhooks! “That’s so unfair.”
Shaya sticks her tongue out at me and that gets me laughing, just seeing her in her armor having a pee and sticking her tongue out at me. She laughs and I can’t help it, I love that sound.
We sneak a few minutes making out after cleaning up. I can’t help it…we were there and getting pretty together and presentable, you know that just in the bathroom in front of the mirror thing that real girls have gotten to do for all their lives. I’m enjoying it, basking in it until I just looked at her a second or two and saw how beautiful she is.
Our girl squire escorts eyes widen as we make out…yeah, to some people here we’re not the norm. We straighten up after that and head back to Bhlaze and our gear which is being uploaded. Shaya takes her message bag and turns. “We need to be taken to Commander Falcon if you please.”
The boy squire looks at the girl one and they’re doing that friends trying to talk without talking thing you see on TV and not doing to well. She really wants to escort us. I catch, her whisper… “They’re like me…”
The look of boy thinking about that flickers over his face and he’s staring at my chest again. I know someone’s gonna think I should be offended but I’m not, I’m still going to get a kick out of it for awhile. I can’t help but flash him a flirty smile. As we leave and follow his friend.

The girl leads us all over the place, it’s kind of a maze but it’s beautiful too at the same time. I’ve got those feelings still running through me with Shaya knowing the place and remembering it I’m getting deja -vu. I’m drawing stares the entire time just like at the palace, more than a few are checking me out. It’s polite like but I’m not at the palace, this is a military place. There’s more stares at my body, and I’m getting embarrassed a little.
I never thought I’d feel sexy.

About thirty minutes later we arrive in a practice court and I recognize the commander through Shaya. He’s sparring off with swords against six knights with live steel. I’ve never seen anything like it…It’s so fast and loud and elegant, like they’re dancing with swords. I’d be intimidated if Shaya wasn’t getting turned on. It’s the swords and the half naked men and the blades and the action and…I feel it starting in myself a little…They are beautiful guys…men…and there is this elegance to the fight. I’ve always just wanted to be me, but…I never thought hard about being attracted to them. I’m not sure if it’s just me or me picking up off of Shaya. She’s a school of passive military stance though, I think it’s called parade rest.

The fight ends ten minutes later. Lord Commander Sendar Falcon, looks at us and at me. He beckons Shaya over with one hand while a squire takes his sword and passes him a towel. Shaya passes him the packet that he opens by touching a signet ring to the sealed seam and he starts to read while wiping himself down.
Shaya and I can’t help but notice.
Falcon or The Falcon is handsome like all elfin men but this is the first time I’ve seen a guy like this since. Light brown hair to his shoulders, nicely tanned, perfect gymnast like build or more like one of those ripped kung-fu guys. Ab’s really perfect ab’s and he’s shining in sweat….and the scent, the smell of stone, metal, and oils mixed with the scent of sweating healthy males….Wow, guys have never smelled like that before.
“You’re the human are you not?”
He’s staring at me now.
“Yes sir.”
“You’re going to be dueling Lady Kyte correct?”
“I’m afraid so sir.”
He nods and there’s a squire there with a dark walnut like blade of wood. “Well then, I’d like to see what you have in you.”
“Uhm.”
Shaya looks at me. “Wren you don’t have to do this.”
“I have to learn sometime Shaya.” I take the wooden blade and look at him. “I’ve never done this before, so bear with me.”

…..the spar or the fight went fast. I had stripped off down to just my armor and there was a chime. He came at me and he hit me a half dozen times. Before I started to get my sword in front of his. Then old instincts started to take over, and I could feel Shaya’s unconscious feeling there as she watched. How I should move if she was doing it and I let go…went with the flow of things and rode the sword feeling like I’d ride the road, there’s a way of being when you drive where things are just about feel, I’ve fought a lot in my past and that feeling that flow is returning to but No Bear…Well there but not? I’m a lot calmer…and I’m thinking clearly two and I’m starting to really get my balance, get used to my being lighter and faster….It goes on nearly fifty minutes before I get a hit on him. It’s a grazing hit to his upper arm, then the chime rings. He backs off. I stop and get dizzy and fall my lungs burning, my muscles are screaming. I’m sweat soaked. Shaya catches me but I can feel her emotions all over the place. Turned on, mad at him, proud of me…(God that feels good.)
He comes over and squats down and leans on his practice sword. “You’ve never used a blade before?”
“No…” I’m panting and manage a weak headshake.
“You’ve fought before?”
“Some, not like this though.”
“You my dear woman have acquitted yourself well.” He gestured at the others he had been sparring with. “I might have been taking it easy on you at first, but not at the end of this. These are my junior squires and I’ve been working them for the last four years, they have yet to lay a blade wooden or not on me.”
He offers me his arm in the warriors arm clasp thing. And I lock my arm with his and we shake. “It was an honor.”
He stood up and looked at us both. “You’ll guest with us? I’ll have things for your father Princess.”
Shaya nods. “It’d be our honor to be allowed at your table Commander.”
He smiles. “Good, and I’ll send my seamstress to your quarters, Erendae has well earned herself a fine dress for the occasion.” He bowed at the waist. “My treat.” Then gave nods to his entourage. They left giving us looks and nods of respect…it feels good, almost as good as how proud of me that I’m getting off of Shaya…I’m not really able to hold in the happy tears…and neither is she.
I can feel her tears on my face and mine running down my own face as she has her fingers wound up in my hair and is holding me on her lap and passionately kisses me.
“I never thought I’d find love like you Erendae…”
“My Wren…My Beautiful one.”
“I love you.”