Patreon LogoYour support makes Blue Moon possible (Patreon)

The Flames of Revolution (Grimoire and Mim)

To all the world, it might have appeared that there were two streaks of lightning. Bolts of retribution divine, a corona of crackling magelight that coiled around the masses within. A meandering trail, like the stardust tail of a passing comet, curled around the stonework of downtown Goldwater in their wake.

In time to her steps, Rowan took up position just behind her. He stepped over the fallen thug, rapping out once with the end of his staff -- a solid and heavy clonk of wood that put the man out of his misery... for as long as it might take him to recover from unconsciousness and the resulting concussion, at least. His scream was followed by a too-still silence, a period that spoke louder than any exclamation mark.

The building before them was a patchwork creation; thin wooden walls had been erected throughout, more partitions than any legitimately worked wood. There were men here and there -- shades in the half-light engaged in cards, dice, or idle conversation. They were already rising in advance of Gwenner's assault, roused to action by a distant scream. A couple of them were already breaking for the back room, which told the dwarf just where she would need to go.

Others were throwing themselves in the path of the two avengers, a pair of thugs drawing wicked-looking short blades that glistened in flickering lantern light with something untoward. Street toughs that fought dirty, going for kidney shots or side swipes; one never stood a chance, being right in front of a vengeful dwarf. The other --

He might have gotten lucky, if a foul wind didn't rise from the floor and take him straight off his feet, upending him into a spin five feet into the air, to land on the next fool that was coming to back up their allies.
 
The alarm had been raised, but the pair was too fast and too strong. Gwenner swung her hammer almost carelessly as they passed; a hand here, a leg there, limbs seemed to simply disintegrate under her hammer more easily than usual. The sickening crunch of shattering femurs and elbows was familiar to Gwenner, and she might have winced in contrition had it not been for the circumstances. They had girls from her neighborhood, she reminded herself; they preyed on her friends and neighbors, and for that she could give no quarter. The only mercy the pit fighter allowed was that she had let them live.

The rest of the thugs led her straight to the girls. There weren't many of them left by the time she and Rowan had gone through their comrades, but there were a few. Gwenner paused and glared at them, sizing them up. The dwarf considered giving them a warning, but no. Their allies had been the warning. She blinked. She took a breath. She swung. It seemed no time at all, really. It felt as though her hammer had met little resistance, a mere speedbump on its way through bone and sinew. She didn't know how he was going to set his shattered ribs later, and she didn't care. Between her and the wizard they made short work of the remaining thugs before shouldering the door open.

There were five girls chained to one another and to a pipe bolted to the floor. Three she recognized--the two girls Rowan had come looking for, and a third who was a street kid who sometimes came in for a meal when she hadn't gotten one in a while. Gwenner didn't know her name, but the kids all called her Curly. Nattie was there, dirty and tear-stained, cowering when the door opened. The leather wrapping around the haft of the hammer creaked as Gwenner tightened her grip, momentarily considering going back to the thugs. They could never hurt anybody like this again.

"We are go," she said softly. "Em not of hurtink you. Netty..." She approached Nattie first and inclined her head toward the others. The girl nodded.

"She's alright," she confirmed in a soft, quavery voice. "I know her."
 
Screams foretold them and pain spread out in their wake. Had they a chance to prepare for a magical assault, they might have been able to put up a better fight against Rowan and Gwenner, but as it was...

Hammer swing and the strike of a staff cleared the path, the tall wizard acquitting himself in spite of what seemed to be a terminal case of skinniness. His strikes did not so much shatter bone as take men off their feet, carrying the gust of a foul wind that often sent them into their own allies, depriving them of their chance to do anything significant to the duo as they hustled their way to the back room and the blackguards' treasure that lay inside.

The moment they were through, he spun an idle spell to bar the door behind him, to lock it from the inside in a way that would defy their keys. That would hold off pursuit, for a time.

Girls. Dirty, often stripped down to rags cobbled together of roughspun cloth and scraps of dignity. At least one of the girls already showed signs of use, with heavy bruising between bare thighs and a faraway look in her eyes. She'd retreated elsewhere, until she was given leave to wake again from this nightmare.

Rowan felt his heart skip a beat, and it was with a grimace that he turned his staff over once. He stood tall over the women of the room -- a foreboding and tall specter of a man, basking in arcane might in a way that made even the even-keeled seem so much more -- were it not for the same spell entwining him and Gwenner, he might have seemed one of those monsters himself.

A thought came unbidden.

Would that he could employ spellcraft to deal with this problem. To make certain that these men could never lay a hand upon women again; Rowan would have preferred to do so by fire, but cold would take longer. That would do, and he might be done with this place.

But... he reflected.

Arcane power flared to his fingers, a spell of unlocking, of breaking chains and freedom. Light flared inside of the lock as the mechanisms were forced apart, springing the padlock with force enough to cause the metal to grind and refuse its closing in the future.

He could not.

"Ms. Gwenner, we have to go. But it will take me a moment. Hold the door while I incant our escape," Rowan said as he moved to kneel within the center of the room. The door behind him shuddered under the weight of not just shoulder bashes, but shortly after something more. Something... magical. Splashes of force rocked the door in its frame, threatening it to buckle.
 
One of the girls she didn't know had already been used. If the girl's family tried to say she'd fallen, if anyone dared to question her purity...

No. There was no point in ifs right now. Ifs would be answered by sunrise. Now was the time for doing, and doing was what Gwenner did best.

The girls made noises of alarm and relief as the locks clicked open, creaked, and rusted before they had fallen to the ground. Gwenner moved to pick up the girl who had been worst-injured, but Rowan asked her to hold the door. She frowned. They had gotten in easily enough, what was stopping them from getting out? It wasn't like any of those bastards were getting up any time soon. She opened her mouth to protest, but was interrupted by a thunderous blow from the other side of the door. It cracked and rocked and the dwarf spun on her heel to face it. With each blow the girls squeaked or squealed in fright, trying to find a place to cower which was away from the door but also away from the enormous man who was not unlike their captors and rapists in his height and build. Rather than shepherding them, Gwenner stepped away and put herself between Rowan and the door.

"Ah yes," she murmured, one corner of her lip tugging up a fraction of an inch. "Em knowink you of a lonk time."

In one hand she gripped her hammer. The other pulled from her belt an improvised club made of a broken-off stool leg, sanded down and wrapped with leather for a better grip but solidly made nonetheless. It was a less lethal way of breaking up fights if for whatever reason her fists weren't enough, and the effects of the spell she had seen so far made her confident in its ability to at least bust a few kneecaps. Like a particularly stumpy cat preparing to pounce, Gwenner shifted her weight between her feet. She waited.

The force behind the door was no one she had fought before, but she knew his kind: large, strong, and slow. The mace he used had been set on fire, but that didn't appear to daunt the dwarf as she belted her battle cry and charged head first. There was a surprised oof when the rock-solid crown of her head connected with his diaphragm, knocking breath from his lungs just long enough for her club to connect with his knee. The maceman grunted and swung, grazing her shoulder with the flames but largely missing the smaller target. Mostly she was offended he had gotten close enough that she could smell her own singed hair. She was proud of her hair.

Her off-hand hadn't been strong enough to do much damage to his knee, but when she swung the hammer she felt it connect solidly with his ribs. When he bent sideways to protect them Gwenner was pleased to find she'd brought him low enough to connect her foot with his sternum. With a snarl she kicked, sending him staggering two or three steps back into the hallway.

Reversing her grip on the club, the dwarf pursued.
 
The ferocity had been only half-expected, the small woman's fury made manifest in lightning crack and thunderous bellow. She advanced on the big man, driving him back across the rough stone floor. Glimpsed in her pursuit, stumbling back as he was, she could make out the fullness of his frame. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 6', comprised of the solid beef that one would attribute to a simple meathead... but there was more to him than that.

Signs of more, In the arcane sigils that had been tattooed across his tanned bald head, the off blue cast to eyes that were certainly otherwise dark, and the half-plate steel glinted in the light of a flaming morning star.

As Gwenner closed the distance between them, the big man regained his footing and re-engaged with her. She managed to deflect a bolt of fire coming her way with a swipe of the back-hand club, the flame catching in the old polished wood grain, burning embers sweeping across the back of her knuckles. She grit her teeth and met him head-on.

She caught the mace's haft with the head of her hammer, holding him back might-to-might, the flame lighting the space between the two of them, highlighting the fury cast in either pair of eyes. She pushed forward on the hammer, swinging the cudgel around to catch him again across the knee -- but this time she wasn't fast enough. She never would have been, not as a sparkling prismatic wave of air coalesced for a split-second around him, forcing the club and her own hammer back, leaving her open for a split second as he raised his mace high, a sun seconds in setting.

It was all he needed. All he needed to press the advantage, and for a single thought to spring again to mind.

Magic hitters.

He roared his fury, stomping down hard on the ground, the stone underfoot shifting in place to twist her ankles -- and painfully so -- out from underneath her -- it was only the experience of shifting, bloodied sands beneath the ivy crown that let her keep her footing as magic twisted the stone. Though she stayed upright, it kept her open as that flaming mace caught her heavy on the shoulder of her off-hand. By reflex, she dropped the cudgel and tightened her grip on her hammer, raising it to shield against the next strike.

He swung it down at her again, a falling star that backlit the room, full of the groaning and the fallen. This man the only thing between her and the safety of those girls. The weapon came down before -

It flickered out of existence.

A cruel smile twisted his lips as the mace reappeared in his other hand, coming the other way to catch her full in the ribs. An honest blow, as brutal as any she'd experienced in the ring. Her breath left her, and she felt the uncomfortable but dulled, the too-old feeling of a rib going from solidly in place to snapped and floating -- but it wasn't enough. It was never enough, not to take her out of the fight. She wrapped an arm around the mace against her side, dropping the hammer as she twisted her hips and buried her other hand in the cloth between rib and shoulder--

Her height let her act as a fulcrum, dragging the big man with her. Fury outlined her every muscle in sharp relief, heaving with all her dwarven might and barbarian rage, slamming him to the ground like any unruly patron. He hit the ground hard, spitting out half a curse as she rolled onto the ground with him, holding his arm the entire time. She twined her legs around his shoulder, pulling his arm across her body. She didn't have the time or the inclination to bend, to make him pray for submission or be thrown upon the mercy of the judges of the sand circle--

It was so much faster just to break.

She twisted his arm one way as she pressed down with her feet, the old feeling of an arm leaving its socket and terminating in a satisfying crunch of an elbow becoming so much dust. He screamed, and it was with a flailing and indelicate hand that he swept the mace over his own body, her foot catching his hand in the half swing and causing him to loose the burning weapon amongst the old warehouse crates. Fire was catching -- her forgotten club in simmering cinders, the mace aflame.

And over the starting crackle of fire around her, she could see them. Some of the thugs that had only been bowled over were picking themselves up, drawing glittering iron in furious revenge. But--

"To me!" came Rowan's voice. Naught but a stumble away, into a circle of glowing spellcraft. An empty room but for Rowan, cast in arcane light with an eldritch glow to brilliant eyes. Outstretched arms, that the second she fell into them--

An arm wrapped tight around her, and wind swept past him. Through the thugs that were picking their way into the room. A lethargy fell over her as the lightning crack of magic faded, the heavy wind pushing the two of them back into the circle as it threw their enemies back out of that squalid prison cell.

They were swept away in a whirlwind of purest magic. Deposited in a room full of grime, dirt, and lost girls, landing in a heap in what seemed to be a stone basement, full of iron and arcane sigils. Gone was the crackle of fire, and the pump of adrenaline.

They were safe.
 
"To me!" The wizard's voice was far off, echoey as though from the bottom of a cave.

Had Gwenner looked back she would have taken her chances with the thugs rather than the mysterious glow around him. She was tempted to stay anyway; she had not meant for any of them to be able to get back up so quickly. She staggered backward, still facing them to look menacing even as she retreated. The dwarf was within Rowan's reach when one of the men stepped into the room. The dwarf took half a step forward to meet them, but half a step was all she could manage; a strong forearm wrapped tightly around one shoulder and rested across her chest, hand gripping the other shoulder tightly to press her back against him. Her cry of protest was lost in the howl of magic wind and the room changed, spun into view before rushing up to meet her feet.

Gwenner took a stagger step sideways to avoid falling as her knee buckled. Slightly dazed, she looked around to see nothing but stone and iron, the girls, arcane sigils she didn't recognize, and Rowan. She blinked. She took a deep breath. She winced. Just as she thought, but no time for that now. With a business like gesture she tucked her hammer into her belt and approached the most battered girl huddled against one wall. There was another flinch and a quiet grunt when she slipped one arm under the girl's knees and the other around her back to pick her up.

"Gwenner you're hurt!" Nattie took a few tentative steps toward her to help, but didn't try to interfere just yet. Trying to help generally only irritated her more. "Put Ledia down, take a few minutes."

She shook her head once. "No time," she insisted with a grimace, staggering not under the weight of the much taller girl but the pain of the broken rib. "We take all of you to Ify Crown, tell perints girrels are beink of safe end sound. Heff breakfast...supper...whateffer time is beink. Then I take few minuets."

Nattie looked to Rowan for help. Not that she particularly thought that any sort of man, never mind a stranger, could tell Gwenner what to do. But he had magic, and maybe he could use it to crack her hard head for once.

"No lookink at of him," Gwenner scolded over her shoulder, halfway through the door with young Ledia. "Is wizard, not worker of miracles. This you are knowink."
 
As the strands of magic dissipated into so many motes of sparking light, it gave the girls a moment to appreciate where it was that they had landed. Stone counter tops and wooden workbenches, little metal drawers full of all sorts of arcane odds and ends. Alchemical beakers dominated one counter, while on another there were glasscutting tools for a jeweler's touch. It was a workshop, one end dominated by a heavy iron circle and all sorts of sigils, with similar circles pressed into the stone on the walls on each of the three sides around the one into which all of them had been deposited.

With a weary fatigue set into his bones -- he'd used more magic than was customary in a given day, but with the lightning of adrenaline yet surging in his veins -- Rowan rose, a specter taller than any of the women confined in that small space. He hefted himself on his staff, and took a half-step forward as Gwenner moved down the length of the workshop with Ledia in tow.

"... Ms. Gwenner," Rowan said, striding down the opposite side of the workshop, divided as it was by one long counter, catching up in but a few long-legged steps. "It's night out, and we weren't subtle; we'll be safer here until morning; my home is better-warded than everything short of the regent's mansion and I have plenty of food. At least for a night of guests," he said with a thin smile. "Their parents can come in the morning, and in the meanwhile," he swung the tip of the staff on the small dwarven woman as he closed the distance, settling a hand on her shoulder. It felt... warm to the touch, moreso than it ought to. It felt soothing. "Put Ledia down; I can tend to your wounds while they wash and rest."

It was a request made not only by him, but by the hopeful eyes of all those young girls. Those that lingered in pain, hurt, hope, and gratefulness to their saviors. The same cast that could see just how much Gwenner was pushing herself.
 
Gwenner didn't return the wizard's smile. Instead she set her mouth in a grim line and a muscle worked in her jaw while he suggested they not tell the parents until morning. What sort of a man was this?

"You heff daughter go missink, is okay when rescu-arss wait until mornink?" she argued. "Efery moment you are beink of heartsick, lose of sleep, lose of want to be eatink, end they wait until mornink?" But Rowan swung his staff and touched her shoulder and instantly a knot which had been there since long before the rescue mission began undoing itself. She had a feeling that if she tried to turn her head, she would find she had a greater range of painless motion than before the Six Year Crick (deserving of its own capitals even in her mind) had set in. As usual her expression was glacially slow to change, but a few of the crags around the corners of her eyes began to soften ever-so-slightly. She looked over at the girls, filthy and wounded and hopeful for the first time in a long time, and sighed.

"Is what you are wantink?" she asked.

Nattie nodded, and even Ledia put a hand on her shoulder. "It's okay Miss Gwenner," she assured her. "I don't want my parents to see me like this anyway."

With pursed lips and another sigh, the dwarf gently set the human girl down and looked to Rowan. "You are gettink of beths," she instructed. "Heal them forst. Em gettink of foods, end water. Then bedtime, yes?" She looked to the girls, who nodded, and she nodded back. With a gesture of impatience, she motioned at Rowan. "Get to," she instructed before turning on her heel and heading back out the door, unencumbered this time. The magic done on her had left her fatigued, but the adrenaline of battle still zinged through her veins and made her tired body vibrate with unspent energy. It was a curious sensation she wasn't entirely certain she liked, but either way that energy would need an outlet and soon.
 
Would he rather wait?

It might have been a hard question for most men to answer, to say that they would languish in the torment of the unknowing for hours after the loss of a child--

Rowan Ascheron Severus Blackstone was not most men.

His expression gentled. The sternness at the corner of eyes the color of a winter sky smoothed out in time to the wave of soothing energy, an arcanist's touch that carried with it the feeling of a moonlit evening by the light of a crackling fire. It was almost as if she could smell the heady wood and dew of a far-flung forest, a power channeled from far afield of a salty port.

"I would rather them be safe. For one night more, there's no safer place in Goldwater. For any of us." With the girls backing him up, a smile curved his lips. His hand squeezed briefly on her shoulder before he swept away from her.

"Everyone -- gather close. I've magic to spare--"

The rest of the Blackstone abode was a quiet place, one of passing oddity. A high-ceilinged place, with the workshop accessing the rest of the house by way of a stout little wooden set of steps that dropped from the ceiling. The first floor was comprised of what seemed to be a sort of living room-cum-front office, bedecked in a little desk as well as various and sundry magic totems and artifices. Books lined a shelf, all with hard-bound leather covers and sigils of other languages -- including Dwarven among them, promising aspects of the magical theories behind gemcrafting.

There was a fireplace with totems and skulls upon the hearth, casting dim embers over a couple of mismatched couches where clients could make themselves comfortable. The entire place was decorated then in textures, tapestries and rugs of varying style, enough that made the space soft in spite of the edge that was clearly manufactured for the layman.

Beyond that little room of artifice, things got considerably more normal.

A kitchen and washroom with an oft-stoked wooden stove and an icebox often filled with the actual shavings of ice produced by the mages who kept the fisheries fresh. A set of creaky stairs that led up to another floor. The kitchen was... well, stocked enough. Fruits and vegetables were abundant in the dry storage, with a whole chicken earmarked for dinner in the icebox. There were other odds and ends as well -- a wedge of cheese, a half loaf of wheat, slightly stale, and a small clutch of eggs, enough for one man for a few days or a batch of battered girls and a dwarf for one evening of meals. A spigot produced water, enough to fill a set of earthenware cups and crystal glasses in turn.

Another open cabinet, reached by way of a stool, produced a respectable amount of liquors ranging from clear to honey gold.

Some time passed before Rowan brought all the girls in -- each of them looking a fair bit cleaner if not yet scoured. They seemed haler, heartier. Nattie was the first to shine a brighter smile at Gwenner.

"His magic helped, Miss Gwenner-- go on, he can help y'. I can get food for everyone--" Nattie said, passing an expectant look back Rowan's way.

"Clear me out," he said with a wave of one hand. "Food's nothing if it's not filling stomachs." With another wave, the fire in the wood stove rekindled itself more fully, the house picking up in heat by degrees.
 
His stores weren't impressive, exactly, not when compared to the Ivy Crown's larder, but it was more than she had expected for a presumed bachelor. Gwenner wondered whether he had a maid or something for the daytime; in her experience that was the only time single men kept a well-stocked pantry. Before anything, she filled every cup she could find with water as well as a pitcher. Hydrating the poor girls would be key to their recovery, as gods knew when the last time they'd eaten or drank had been. Before starting the fire for a heavier meal she began cutting up apples and cheese to tide the girls over until dinner could get made, then sliced the bread to go along as well. She had only just bent to start the fire when the girls appeared, looking miles better than they had before though still not one hundred percent. Nattie smiled and Gwenner nodded in return.

"You are only just beink--"

"It's alright," Nattie insisted. "You got hurt too. Go on; I've got this." She inclined her head and Gwenner stared hard for a few seconds.

Her contemplation was broken by a fire erupting to life in the stove where she had been working to build it back up. With a reproachful look at Rowan, she thought for a few more seconds before nodding. "Fine."

Without invitation, Gwenner stumped past the wizard and up the stairs. She wasn't about to undress in front of the girls, after all; they'd probably had more than enough of naked people for one lifetime. With one elbow on the bed for balance, she bent over to pull off her boots and stockings. One ankle was noticeably swollen.

"Congretyuleshin, Rowan Bleckstone," she said, grunting as she pulled off the other boot. "You are hero." She set her foot down but immediately picked it back up to lower it more gently, leaning most of her weight on her other leg while she stripped off her tunic. "Four--" she took a deep breath, grunted, and shook her head, "fife broken rips, sprenned wrist, twisted enkel." She turned her back to him with her good hand on the edge of the bed so that he could clearly see her side where an enormous, ugly bruise was blooming amongst the burns where the flaming mace had caught her. "You do of your mejik."
 
Rowan's smile was a small and thin one at the reproachful look. Magic had its conveniences, and a fair bit of the home seemed to operate entirely off of those principles; what could be done with magic would be preferable to what could be done by hand. Wood burned all the same, whether by tinderbox or by arcane cantrip.

He stalked after her upstairs, where the trend toward normalcy continued. His room was a fairly plain affair, save for the enormous bed that served his lanky height and rangy frame well enough. It was... comfortable-looking, frankly. Thick blankets to keep away the chill brought about by a wide round window set into one wall. Nightfall had come in the past hour or so, the peculiar styling of the glass casting the entire place into a pale blue light. It shone across a busy-looking desk that was covered in tomes of various kinds, and just lit the interior of his open closet, filled with heavy cloaks that seemed to be his style of choice.

All the better to billow with, my dear.

"... mm. No, not quite--" Rowan said as he strode across his room, shrugging out of his heavy coat and laying it across the top of his desk, shuffling a few errant scraps of paper around. "I did as I could. The heroic thing would have been to dismantle their entire operation forevermore. I hope the guard can clean up."

He had intended that all along, but he'd been galvanized to action--

And yet...

Though it had not been his job to do so, he was glad they had done it. Even if it came with a price.

Clear eyes drew over Gwenner's back, catching the bruise that was forming. For her to even be that intact was impressive. He had seen but a glimpse of that arcane thug, and that mace strike would have been enough to fell men less stalwart than Gwenner.

He found a rueful smile coming to his lips.

"You're the heroic one here, Miss Gwenner. All I did was facilitate," he said as he approached her, beckoning for her to sit more fully on the bed as he pressed a knee against it. She had taken a beating for sure, and it was with a gentleness that one hand found her wrist, the other her ankle-- the benefits of his lanky frame and her stout one. Soothing magic filled the room with a shade of moonlight, the discoloration returning to a more natural and neutral shade.

They were lesser healing spells, which carried into something much greater as his hand curled over her hip, sliding up to across her rib cage. His touch was gentle, practiced, causing the air to smell of... juniper berries? Deep pines, and other signs of an autumnal wood, a frost that soothed. THe light redoubled, a coolness that intensified as his warm hand drew over the marred and muscled skin, returning it to smoothness and wholeness, even if it was left a little sensitive to the touch.

"How does that feel, Gwenner?" Rowan whispered, barely looking up from his careful ministrations.
 
"Feh. Let Watch do job for once, yes?" The dwarf waved a dismissive hand. "Almost worse than nothink; is better to do job yourself when is it thet you kin. But they will not." She sighed and shook her head. "Eventually we go beck, you end I, finish job. But we giff Watch benefit of doubt, hm?" There was a touch of wan humor in her tone, though her lips only pressed into a thinner line by way of a grimace.

Rowan beckoned for her to sit on the bed and she did so, pulling herself up with a grunt as she used only her good arm and leg. He didn't know what he was getting himself into. Her entire body vibrated with energy. Gwenner had been particular about the way she celebrated victories, and often even losses, back in her fighting days. Adrenaline in her body was unspent energy, a powerful aphrodisiac which spoke to the survival part of her brain. There were four F's to survival, she had once heard some fancy science man say. (At least, she assumed he was a science man: he'd had glasses and said he'd gone to a university.) As fleeing was not in her nature, there were only three f's left after surviving a match, and adrenaline still ran high after she had fought and fed. Though she was not generally inclined toward romantic ties, during her fighting career she had bedded some of the most handsome men in the city--often high born men whose bet she had won for them--and more than a few of the most handsome prostitutes. And Rowan, whatever else he might be, was certainly a handsome man.

"Em fighter; I did the fightink. Is job," she said with a shrug. He leaned closer and so did she. It had been so very long since she had been with a man.

This wasn't the first time she had been healed by magic, and it wasn't the first time she had noticed that healing magic had a certain sort of smell. But whereas arena healers always smelled clinical, of ointments and ozone, Rowan's magic smelled of the deep woods and quiet places of the world. She sighed and her expression softened as he placed his hands on her body, gently pulling ribs back into place, knitting the bone together, soothing away bruises and burns. Rowan was too close. His hands were too soft. His voice was too gentle as he asked how she felt. She took a deep breath to test her ribs, then nodded.

Gwenner's hand had reached out almost before she had realized that she had a fistful of his leather jerkin. With practiced ease and strength she pulled the wizard in, dipping her head to meet the face still bent to his work. Lips and teeth met a little more firmly than she'd meant to when she crushed a hard kiss to his lips and buried the other hand in his hair.
 
"Something like that. I will have to hide my involvement tonight, but then, these are not men who are in the position to go and rat me out to the authorities. They'd be clapped in equal parts irons and irony," Rowan said with a low rumble of a chuckle as another spell was cast,

Rowan's touch shifted freely across her body, briefly marveling at the feel of supple skin and rippling muscles. He had tended to his fair share of fighters over time, even if he himself was the most common recipient of magical triage in these moments of duress. While his hand had spread across more muscles than he could possibly have counted, this was the first time that it included a solid and curvaceous dwarven woman amongst that number.

She was smooth, her body warm and solid beneath his touch, brushing underside one heavy breast as her bones were made to knit and realign themselves. He was so absorbed in his work and the steady press of his hands that he hardly noticed it when her fingers curled tight in the cloth of his jerkin--

He certainly noticed, however, when soft lips met his at speed.

"Alright, that should be enou--mmmph~!" he managed as he was nearly bodily pulled against her, his hand catching whatever it could as her fingers twined so nicely in dark hair. However long it had been since she'd been with a man, it had to have at least been as long since Rowan had known a woman. Where he had grabbed onto her, her breast fit his palm nicely, and it was reflexively that he squeezed, feeling a little thrill at being so close to someone so equal parts soft and solid--

He'd had human women and had more than once felt the light, gentle, and sometimes cruel touch of Sylvan fingers. This was another thing entirely, causing one hand to knit itself into the hair at the base of her skull.

"Gwenner, I--" Rowan managed, pulling his lips free of hers for just a split second. He was trying to turn his hips, get one knee under him -- but the space was closed again between them, her lips taking his as he managed to shift his weight... in entirely the wrong direction, his weight falling across her body and pressing her down toward the bed. His lips parted by degrees, leaving him open for a swipe of tongue, hot and wet--
 
Wizards talked too much. Gwenner would have told him so, but in the heat of the moment that was a bit hypocritical of her. He shifted his weight and practically fell on top of her, pressing her against the bed. It wasn't the most graceful maneuver, but it was something she could work with. Rowan's lips parted and she immediately took the opportunity, sliding her tongue into his mouth and pulling his lips more firmly against hers. With a small amount of wriggling she managed to get one leg on either side of him while she fumbled with the fasteners on his jerkin. Why were wizard clothes so complicated? And beneath that was a tunic.

Fuck it. He knew how to undress himself.

In a move practiced in the arena and perfected in the bedroom, she pressed her thighs against Rowan's ribs and gripped his shoulders with both hands. The only warning was a noticeable tightening of the abs and a quick linking of ankles at the small of his back before she flipped them, pinning him under her by the shoulders. With a small, crooked smile she lowered her lips to his shoulder, kissing and nibbling her way across and up to his neck before brushing hair away from his ear. His hair was pleasantly soft, silky, much like she imagined a wizard's hair ought to be; how else would it billow dramatically with his cloak?

"Do of mejik to ward walls." Her lips brushed against his ear as she whispered to him. "Em mekink you of scream my nem." She pressed her teeth gently against the ridge of his ear and dragged the very tip of her tongue around the edge before sliding down his body to unfasten his pants. Strong yet surprisingly gentle fingers gripped his shaft, pumping up and down while she watched his face carefully.
 
Wizards were bountiful in their knowledge. That was step one and ten of being counted amongst their number--

The number of clever, astute, and learned men that lived in perpetual search of Universal Truth. There was not much that could surprise a wizard that had lived as long as Rowan Blackstone, one who had pressed arcane and eldritch forces into the service of manipulating reality and doing battle with great beasts--

Having a hard-bitten dwarven woman tearing at his robing, her wide and warm tongue pressing against his, and-- using that as a distraction to flip him onto his back--

Yes, that was very much a new one for him. He was far more used to the gentle touch of elven fingers, of the sweet succor coupling with a fae could provide the soul-- but he felt a thrill in his chest as he was pressed down against the softness of his own bed, her lips pressing a hot trail over his neck. He shivered, his hands sliding across his own stomach to quickly and carefully undo the buttons and clasps of his clothing, baring more and more pale skin by the moment--

He was trim. Slender, even. Pale to an extreme, and possessed of just enough muscle to not mark him as the living dead. He let out a shaky laugh at what he thought for a moment was a joke -- before the suddenness of her teeth on his ear and the jerking at his belt impressed upon him the seriousness with which she had just threatened him. He waved a hand, speaking quickly an arcane word to do as she had commanded, the walls glowing briefly a pale blue before she could get his trousers off--

He was already hard, springing to life in her hands. He let out a low groan as her fingers wrapped tightly around him, pumping him with the efficiency of a woman who knew what she wanted and was very much about to get it, thank you. He pressed his hands against the bed, pushing himself up just enough so that he could reach for her, grabbing at the collar of her shirt.

"Ah... G-Gwenner-- get this... off," he said, twitching happily in her hand. Whatever was happening right now, the wizard seemed very receptive. Moreso than he might have thought he'd be--
 
Rowan was small. Not small small, not like a gnome was small or a halfling was small. But his waist was so dangerously tiny that Gwenner was certain that should she try and hug him she'd be able to wrap her arms all the way around and touch her own elbows. He was finely muscled and pale, like an elf, and those muscles tensed when he laughed in a way that made the dwarf bite her lip briefly. He would need a few solid meals, many more hours in the sun, and a few more heavy things to pick up and put down, before she would cease to be worried about breaking him every time she so much as looked at him too quickly. But for tonight, she would go easy. Well...she would try to go easy.

Well...she would try not to break him. Too much.

He waved a hand, murmured some mumbo-jumbo, and Gwenner caught a brief glow of blue on the walls. She graced Rowan with an actual, wide, unrestrained grin. "You are beink of goot leesner," she said with a note of approval. "This will serf you well." She noticed the wizard's muscles tightening again and looked up from his shaft to see him reaching for her. Rowan tugged at her collar and she smiled again before capitulating and pulling off her final layer of clothing.

The bruising and lacerations from their most recent encounter had covered a number of other, older wounds. Scars that magic couldn't heal--and a few she had asked them not to heal--criss-crossed her back and ribs. A particularly livid, ropy white scar worked its way from her left wrist all the way up to her shoulder before taking a sharp turn down toward her ribs. Another, raised and ovular, had taken up residence just north of her lowermost right rib; had she turned around, its twin would have been apparent on her back, slightly higher. Gwenner pulled Rowan's trousers to his ankles then off, divesting herself of her own pants while she was so geographically separated. Tattoos made one calf and thigh a dizzying piece of art as she crawled back up his body, twisting to her hip and petering out across her flank.

There was only so far, with their height difference, that she could stretch. If the dwarf could have had her way, she would have pinned his wrists above his head while straddling his hips but instead had to make do with pressing them against the mattress by his shoulders. Strong fingers gripped his wrists and her muscles tensed visibly beneath her skin every time he tried to move in a direction she wouldn't permit. Slowly she pressed her hips against his, grinding against him while she brought her face down within nearly half an inch of his, her warm, wet lips parting around his shaft.

"You are thinkink thet you are bigshot knowink-all-of-it wizard, hm?" she murmured quietly, allowing a noise of pleasure as her clit slid against his throbbing shaft. "You are thinkink, 'is dworf, is knowink nothink of big folk thinks like rescuink missions,' hm?" Gwenner pressed her lips to his, softly this time but no less firmly. "Perhaps I must be showink you of just how much em knowink, eh? Proof thet Rowan Bleckstone is not always knowink best."
 
Crystaline blue eyes dragged freely over her body.

There was something beautiful in the way those scars told a story. Jagged lines and long, smooth carves. Strikes that had chipped a woman as tough and humorless as stone, creating a one-of-a-kind piece of statuary that found its beauty in the ways in which it had been made imperfect, as if time and circumstance had wielded the chisel every bit as much as the original artisan. It was the kind of thing a time-worn scholar could thoroughly appreciate... but perhaps later.

When she didn't have a firm grip of his cock.

He tried to reach for her, to draw the tips of his fingers across those shifting muscles and the gentle swells of womanly curve, but he didn't have much time to do that either. Not as, with a thrill of adrenaline and heat in his chest, she was suddenly forcing his hands down and straddling him oh-so-nicely. The tip of his cock probed at her entrance, and it was something he could scarcely wait for. He shifted just so under her, trying to arch his back so that he could claim her more quickly than she aimed--

But then she fell. Sheathing him, driving him home in a way that made him squirm, causing her muscles to restrict just-so in holding him right in place to be used for her pleasure. Toes curled and he let out a hot breath of exhilaration, hips falling flush with one another.

He could hear the challenge in her voice, and he knew exactly what to say in a situation such as that. He licked his lips, suddenly dry, and flexed his arms against her.

"That's about the size of it," he said after a long moment. "You... you can try," he said at last.
 
Try! Dwarves did not try, dwarves simply did. She would show him what trying looked like. With an arched eyebrow and a smirk tugging at one corner of her lip, she leaned forward again to kiss him while tensing her muscles in response to his own flex.

"You are knowink how to pley of games, Rowan," she said, pressing her hips forward and sliding up his shaft again before slowly lowering back down. "Is good." Her kisses wandered to his jaw, then his throat. "But heff neffer to be knowink womens like me." Her lips traced along his skin up to his ear as she rode him slowly. "Em not pleyink of eny games," she whispered.

That was a lie. Of course she was playing games; what other way was there to have sex but to play games? But it was fun to talk big, though her smile gave her away. Gwenner's smile was like a seam of diamond in a rugged cliff face, crooked and bright and altogether out of place in such a craggy exterior. But that smile lent itself well to nibbling, to kissing, to whispering. The warm tip of her tongue caressed the ridge of his ear as he strained against her again and she chuckled low in her throat.

"Come on," she murmured, her forehead brushing against his temple. "Beeg drametic wizard like you, surely em of more stronk then thet." The dwarf groaned in pleasure as she slid down again, pushing her hips in small, slow circles as she did so. "You are beink of so dem beautifool." Her teeth pressed gently against his neck just below his ear.
 
Rowan was sure of a lot of things; magical formulae, the orientation of the cosmos, the basics of the primeval forces of man and nature... but he really wasn't quite sure how long he would be able to hold on under the insistent slide of her hips, his fingers flexing as she coaxed out groan after low groan--

Her lips were so soft for such a hard and guttural language. Her body cried out to him to be touched, to be kissed, for his hands to slide across the muscles of her stomach and up over her breasts. He wanted nothing more than to dig his fingers into her hips, to help her along her way as the pace between them picked up. Worst of all were those words dropping from her lips, words that managed to draw from him a sound undignified.

She was going to shame him and make him cum in as many words, and it was something as simple as challenging his strength that made him draw in a breath. He knew he wouldn't have long -- he knew that she would take control before too long, but that little spark of rebellion in his soul cried out for him to strain against her.

Her tongue hot against his ear, his jaw, it put him in perfect range to lean against her, whispering right back against the shell of her ear--

A few words in that same rolling Draconic--

And magic seized hold of her. A spell low in power in the grand scheme of things, but enough to seize her muscles -- at least for the moment. His arms wrapped around her, and he twisted his hips against hers-- pushing her over onto her side and carrying him with her. With one of her legs against the bed and the other in his arm, he drove his hips against hers, the softness of the bed against her back as he took his chance to fill one hand with the softness of her chest, squeezing.

He did not stop there, either. She could feel his hands take possession of her in a way needy, hungry. Slipping smoothly over her skin, gripping equally at hips, ass, breasts, acquainting himself with everything she had forbade of him.

"You're... not so bad yourself,"Rowan whispered. 6 seconds, maybe 12 -- it was all the spell would afford him before dwarven revenge. Hold Person was a spell oft used on bruisers like her, and he could only hold a will like that for so long, even as his hips fell against hers and increasingly desperate sounds were issued forth from his chest in resonant basso--
 
She was close. It was disappointing that it would be over that soon, but it had been a very long time since she'd had any sort of a lover. Still, that wouldn't be the end of the night: there was much to be said for her stamina, and she would enjoy bringing him to the ragged edge only to make him beg to tumble over it. The dwarf shifted her hips forward into that just so position and tossed her head back.

Slowly.

So slowly she had to fight against her own muscles.

She had felt this before.

Magic wasn't allowed in the arena, and several times her opponents had cheated. Several more times surgeons had had to cast this spell on her to keep her from squirming too much as they dug into her--either magically or mechanically--to try and extract the tips of weapons and projectiles, or to set bones back in place. Not that Gwenner was particularly a squirmer, but some surgeons did it just on principal to any fighter they worked with. Once, however, it had become necessary when a spear tip had lodged itself in her gut where she'd broken the shaft off flush with her skin. Rage boiled up inside her when Rowan used it on her to get the upper hand in sex. If there was anything she hated as much as a liar it was a cheater.

The bed was at least soft as he flipped their positions. The wizard was at least considerate in his desperate possession of her body, with one knee hooked over his elbow and pinned against her chest. She was closer. He whispered something to her that she didn't understand in her rage; so focused was she that she had lost her ability to understand Common at the moment. It was complementary, she knew that. Her fingers twitched as she fought against the spell. Rowan was desperately close, hands sliding all over her body. But she was even closer. Now her hands could move.

Gwenner came with a cry just as the spell wore off, her muscles relaxing only to tense again when her back arched off the bed. Rather than basking in the afterglow, however, the back of her hand immediately met Rowan's cheek and she pounced, lifting herself off of him as she flipped them again and pinned his shoulders down with her knees. Her chest heaved as she gripped his hair to force him to look up a her from between her thighs.

"Em theenkink you are beink big mens, hm?" she demanded with a snarl. She shook him by the scalp. "You are nefer to be usink of the mejik on me. Efer. Understent?" Gwenner waited for the affirmative before letting go of his hair. "Sex, it takes the trust. Hm, Rowan?" She ran her fingers a bit fondly through his hair. "If kennot trust, kennot heff fun. Em likink of heffing fun, do not you?" She smiled before sliding off of him with a firm stay. She slid to the floor and dug around their clothes before finding what she was looking for. "Perheps we must learn of beink trustink of one-each-other, hm? End until you are learnink of how to beink the trustworthy..." She grabbed up both of his wrists in a one-handed iron grip before cinching his belt around them and looping them over a bed post. "You are beink of made to be safe." Gwenner tested the restraints expertly for blood flow and smiled before gagging him with his own scarf. "You are to beink of eskink for permission," she instructed, straddling his hips again, "since eskink nicely is beink of so deeficolt for you. But must be learnink of discipline end consideretion before is beink allowed to..." Gwenner mused over the word before uttering something in dwarvish which translated roughly to explosive sexual release which makes one forget one's name and also breathing.
 
He was so very close.

With every smooth stroke, with every fall of hips flush against her own. She was surrounded on all sides by him for those moments, his body propped half-awkwardly on one arm, one knee, and the tip of one foot as he leaned over her, rutting this dwarf into his bed. His voice, his thrusts-- they all picked up to a fever pitch.

She threw her head back -- Rowan about cried out his triumph. It had been too long since he had taken a lover into his bed. It was dizzyingly pleasurable--

And he didn't stop to think that she had just thrown her head back--

It was like being pounced by a crag cat. He should know, having been on the recipient of such a thing. In the moment before he could empty all of his pent up aggression inside of her, she was forcing him off and throwing him to land hard on his back, the bed squeaking and the bedframe thudding as she took her place again astride him. His cheek stung from the blow, and suddenly all he could see was her glistening sex right before hsi face, her thick thighs to either side of his head, and the rest of her body's subtle, myriad curves arrayed in a plane just before his eyes.

"Mmph-- it's... not fair just to make it... a contest of strength," he said, trying to tug his head just away from her -- but his long hair provided a valuable handhold that kept his face positioned riiiight where she wanted it. He opened his mouth to speak again, but it wasn't hard to tell where that would land him.

As... peculiarly exhilarating as it was to think of her forcing herself on his mouth, he merely swallowed once and gave the affirmative that there would be no more magic.

He nearly turned himself back on it the moment she pulled away, but he wasn't sure he wanted to see what she would do at the tail end of a casting of resilient sphere. He feared she would put the ball through a wall, so he was left to merely watch as she stroked him almost tenderly... and set about his restraints.

"... wait-- isn't that what the wards are formmph-"he managed, the scarf shoved into his mouth, his wrists above his head. He twitched in anticipation of her words. He knew them well enough to know exactly just what she was implying.

And by the gods, did he want it. He almost stung with the pent-up tension in his body, begging for a release. Expectant eyes watched her, flexing his hips in request of an orgasm that had been denied.
 
"Is not about the strength," Gwenner protested. "Is about the control. End you are not beink of in control of worse instincts, hm?" She made it clear that there was no more room for argument as she turned away from him and dug for restraints. He asked about the wards and she smiled grimly. "Yes," she shrugged. "But then you are goink, usink of mejik...is better if you kennot speak, if speakink only gets more of the spells kest." His cock twitched at her words and she smiled as she crawled on top of him once more.

"Em effer tellink to you, Rowan," she purred, brushing a bit of hair out of his eyes, "em heffink lucky number of three?" The dwarf smirked crookedly. "See, thet..." she inclined her head to indicate her previous orgasm. "Was beink of 'one.' You are helpink of get to three, end you are doink as told, end beink good...end you are beink allowed of ejekulate. Understent?" Gwenner waited for his assent before lowering herself down onto him. "Gods..." she groaned, letting her head fall back and bracing herself on his ribs. Her pace was not as slow as it had been, but not yet the frantic climb toward orgasm. She was taking her time, if nothing else to make him hunger more for his own release. "You are feelink of such good, Rowan..." One hand slid to her clit as she used him for her own pleasure.
 
It was, in many ways, a particularly sweet circle of hell he found himself in. THere was something almost... spellbinding about her, in a way that no wizard of any college had ever learned. He let himself be bound, for all that his little verbal denials of such were easily passed by. It was not hard to find something like restraints -- cotton wrappings from old robing, used easily to bind his hands. It was looped around one of the bedposts, keeping his hands exactly where she wanted them.

"... ah... ah... fine," Rowan finally gave his assent. He shifted underneath her, merely hungry to finally feel her again -- and as she slid down his length, she felt his hips flex reflexively against her weight. It was a feeling unlike any other, the woman seeming to contour just so perfectly against him as she ground him inside of her--

It went on for longer than Rowan could have counted. Every time he might, it was so easy to lose his concentration when she twisted herself in just the right way. He was a wizard, and so under her words... he kept himself disciplined. He willed the orgasm at bay, even if with every fall of her hips, with every slide of her hands over her body in a way that tantalized his mind, his will eroded. The second orgasm came before long, causing Rowan's chest to seize as he felt her body squeeze reflexively at him--

He kept himself steady for a while longer. Twisting underneath her just so, his breathing coming heavier as she started and stopped to deprive him of his release. He was there for her pleasure, a thought that was oddly titillating to the wizard's mind.

Five minutes, ten perhaps. He kept his discipline, his breathing coming heavier and heavier. The... the damned dwarf... she had to be close by now, didn't she?
 
It was getting more and more difficult for him. That much she could tell. Good. Gwenner gradually lifted herself off of his shaft entirely and grinned at the noises pulled from his throat. Their bodies seemed to contour perfectly to each other, and the longer it went on, the closer he came to losing control, the more fond of him she found herself becoming. He was good. Obedient. After the initial shock of magic, she could see herself getting used to an arrangement like this.

"Almost there," she assured him with a pat on the cheek. She pulled the scarf from Rowan's mouth before straddling his chest again, one knee on either shoulder. "Since you kennot heff been of beggink with words," the dwarf said, running her hand through his hair and gripping it at his scalp, "beg with tongue." Her grip was much gentler than before when she pulled his face to her sex.

That grip didn't last long. Gwenner braced herself with both hands against the headboard as the wizard showed just how skilled he was with that clever tongue. She pressed her hips forward, thighs squeezing his face gently as she climbed closer to that precipice. Knuckles turned white on the headboard as she came with a cry and fell shakily to one side.

"Thet... It was..." There dwarf shook her head as she worked to catch her breath. "You are beink of ferry good, with the proper rules." A small smile played at her lips as her eyes moved down his body, from his face, down his chest, to his twitching cock. "As rewardink for the good behefior," she said slowly while struggling to her knees then untying his restraints, "go."

Gwenner left herself open to be pounced upon. This time she didn't struggle. As a proper reward she would allow Rowan to have his way with her, without struggle, so long as he didn't use magic on her.
 
Rowan was a man of discipline, but by every god he could care to name -- including a dozen or more he'd make up on the spot if pressed -- he could scarce contain himself for much longer. He was shivering with a frightful energy he'd never felt before, or at least not in the hands of any mortal woman. A shaking that found its way into his hands and made his lips quirk upward at the corners in a faint smile as she finally undid the restraints looped 'round his wrists. He rubbed at them, begging the circulation back into them after his own straining had done much to leave them numb. He wiped at his mouth, pressing the other hand on the bed to steady himself as he went to kneel.

"... ahh... well, see. The thing about this is--"

He fell toward her.

His arm slid over her shoulders, falling on her right shoulder as his other hand fell to her hip -- she left herself open, and she'd find herself whipped around and forced face-down against the bed. He had her permission, and it was all he needed in the world to pull her backside back toward him. Stout though she was, he was able to lift her back up just so that he had the right angle, and then he took absolutely everything he wanted of the dwarven woman.

FIngers clenched against her tight ass as he pounded, the smooth slide of their bodies together pushing him oh-so-quickly toward that edge. And when he found it, hips sliding flush with hers as he cared not a single damn for removing himself from her after so much teasing...

She fulfilled her promise, and the guttural cry of her name filled the room as much as he filled her with every spurt of his completion.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom