August bingo post
Sep. 7th, 2011 01:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kkscatnip
Wrote this for my August bingo cards!
Card one has 17 pieces (500-1k words, generally; two bingos + other stories) set in the world of Heirloom, a longer novel that I have no fucking clue what I'm going to do with. These stories are set all over the place, though mostly in the time right after Samair and Ari arrive at the capital.
It's a pretty downer story/universe (this is what happens when your twin brother turns you into an immortal artifact) and so most of the stories are kind of downers. Also, incest. /forewarning.
---
Mistaken Identity
"Kallas!" someone called out behind Ari, the sound of his voice echoing down the halls of the palace quickly drowned out by the sound of his boots as he ran to catch up to Ari.
By all rights, he could turn coldly away and not say anything. Samair would have a fit if he found Ari talking to random strangers in the hall who had possibly grown up in the same place they had.
In the place where Ari had been Arimas, when Ari had been free, when Ari had looked every bit his brother's twin rather than a painter's copy of their friend Kallas. Their friend... Arimas's lover.
"Kallas!" the guy called again, and now catching up to Ari put a hand on his shoulder. "Didn't you hear me? I--"
Ari turned around to face the stranger. His face looked familiar, but no name came to mind. "Who is Kallas?" It felt like betrayal to say it, like a pain in his chest fit to break his heart in two like shattering a mirror on stone. He could almost hear the tinkle of the pieces as they fell.
The stranger licked his lips nervously, probably now noticing the slight differences: Ari's eyes were black where Kalas's were hazel and Ari's hair was perhaps a few shades darker, kept cut at chin-length. Plus there was the aura of the enslavement spell that hung around him like a miasma; it seemed likely that the stranger was not very strong in the ways of magic and thus didn't feel it until he touched Ari's shoulder.
A smile was all that Ari could muster, and it came out brief and pained. So much shattered glass everywhere. "I regret that I am not your friend, and hope he is well."
"Indeed," the stranger murmured. "Carry on, then."
With a nod, Ari did exactly as he was told, resentment burning in his heart at his own damned helplessness.
---
Birthdays
Birthdays were odd things. From when they were born, theirs had been celebrated together: Arimas and Samair, the twins, every fifth day of Marís, a great wonderful party full of all their friends.
Well, all of Arimas's friends, mostly. Samair had few friends, and even fewer friends who enjoyed parties. Himself not much enjoying them either, it made sense, but Arimas had always felt bad for Samair.
This was what came of worrying for his brother, though, clearly: Samair being thrown a feast by the Emperor himself, surrounded by people far more important than Ari. He was not allowed to do more than watch from his place next to the Emperor, and wish fervently for their home, for the valley and the snow-capped peaks and the cold, cold river.
And most of all, his life back. To actually have birthdays, to not be frozen in time. To...
"Ari!" Samair called out, a little bit short of joyfully. Jubilant, certainly. "Come over here!"
Not that 'over here' was very far or very difficult. Ari obeyed, though, standing next to Samair's chair. "Yes?"
Samair simply looked at him, a glower edged with playfulness.
Resisting the urge to sigh is harder than he would have guessed it to be. He really wished Samair didn't require this type of interaction in public. "Yes, master?"
"Good boy." A hand reached up and fingers ran through his hair. "Come and sit in my lap--Kohën here is going to claim the privilege if you don't." He motioned to a red-haired girl that Ari had never met firsthand before, but had seen around the castle and around Samair especially.
Ari did his best to smile politely at her as he climbed into his brother's lap, sitting sideways so he mightn't block Samair's view. His arms came around Ari without hesitation and he and drew Ari's mouth down to his.
Samair did this sometimes. Public displays of affection. Ari didn't know who it was supposed to be impressing, but he did know that Samair never did anything without reason. He kissed back, even so, because he did not wish to be punished in public.
Eventually the kiss ended, Ari finding himself panting slightly, eyes half-closed, and an erection tenting in his simple trousers. Tactfully, Samair had laid a hand over it. He did not press or tease, simply hid, and looked up at Ari with something that might be tenderness in his eyes.
"Happy birthday," he whispered, right when Ari would have looked away.
As stupid as it was to let anything Samair did get to him, Ari's heart had no such restrictions and it soared over the moon at the soft words and the way Samair smiled after. This was the brother he loved; this was the brother he'd willingly let place an enslavement spell on him.
Samair's hand cupped around the back of Ari's neck, giving a gentle squeeze. "Now get back down; it's Kohën's turn."
"Yes, Master," Ari sighed.
---
Shower (together)
The journey from Gislin to Padain took only a week on horseback. Ari treasured it like nothing else, that week of riding alongside his brother and both of them pretending that nothing had changed.
But something had changed; they shared a bed at night. The first time was rough, like Samair was reclaiming Ari now that Ari looked so very different. "I am sorry," Samair whispered in the aftermath as they lay together covered in sweat, the sheets beneath them wet with the same sweat. "My desires escaped me; it won't happen again."
Ari tried to protest, to say that he liked it. He liked feeling the bitemarks the next morning as they dressed; he liked the soreness in his limbs from being pushed that little bit too far. They were memories of Samair that his body carried with him.
Samair would hear none of it, and ordered with the force of the enslavement spell for Ari to not speak of it again.
Two days outside of Padain, it rained. It wasn't any kind of light rain, either; it was the dangerous sort that turned the road to mud beneath their horses' hooves and forced them off of the road to find shelter wherever they might.
Their shelter was found under a weeping willow, near enough to a creek that they could hear the water begin to rush as it rained. Once the horses were tied up properly and their packs in a semi-dry place, Ari left the shelter of the willow. He turned his face toward the sky and put his arms out and laughed. The rain pounded him mercilessly, but it was a good sort of pounding.
"You're crazy!" Samair shouted, but when Ari looked at him he was smiling too.
Just like that, Ari wanted him. He kissed Samair hard, cupping Samair's neck with both his hands and holding him there. Samair kissed back happily, even laughing into the kiss.
Getting wet clothes off was no simple task, but they managed it without ripping anything and soon were lying in the grass simply rocking against one another. It was uncomplicated; sometimes they rolled and Ari was on top and other times Samair pinned Ari mercilessly and rocked so hard that Ari was sure he'd have bruises later.
The rain fell on them, between them, getting into their mouths, plastering their hair to their faces, and making the sparse grass below them slick.
At some point they came, although not together, and continued the play even after that, still laughing, still holding one another, still loving the rain. Even when it slackened a bit, it was still nice; they were already thoroughly wet.
Their game ended when a traveller happened by on the road. If he wished to endanger his horse with the potholes and mud, it was his problem, in Ari's opinion.
"Come; we'll dry off," Samair said, when Ari would have lain there in the open, unashamed of his nudity, until the sun came out again.
It was that as much as anything else that firmly reminded Ari that life was not simple any longer, and likely would never be so again.
---
Truth Serum
Samair had been touted as nothing short of a magical genius for years--ever since he'd brought Ari to the capital and presented him to the Emperor. Ari's brother used spells that hadn't been used for centuries; he created spells that no-one had ever thought of before, and likely no one without an artifact like Ari would ever use again. The sacrifice of the caster that Ari negated was too great.
Every so often, the Emperor came to request that Samair create a spell especially for a certain purpose, because the spells in use for that purpose were too taxing or too unstable or too something else undesirable. Those were Samair's favorite times, as far as Ari could tell: the times when he was commissioned.
At no other time would Samair work with such purpose, often staying up for days on end. This time, he had started out normally at first, but as the first night wore on he demanded more and more lamps. "It must be bright," he muttered to himself, several times. "It won't work if it's not bright."
Ari was left to convey the message to the servants, and by the first morning the workroom smelled heavily of lamp-oil. Samair looked up sharply when Ari went to the window to open it, and he needed no verbal command to know that he wasn't to do such a thing.
Once Samair came up with something workable, it was Ari's task to find a page and enlist him; there was no possible way that the spell could be tested on Ari himself, not when he was part of the working.
"Are you in service to the Emperor?" Samair asked over and over again, each time he tried the spell.
The boy, instructed to lie, answered No every time. It was not until late at night on the second day--they had none of them slept at all--that the spell worked.
Ari felt the way it worked like a physical thing, but the sense of mind and body disconnection he always felt when Samair worked through him kept him from realizing it at first. It was not until the boy gave a high-pitched whine that he realized what he was feeling was success. By that time the boy had cut off his sounds. Despite his effort a short squeak issued forth: "Yes!"
Samair sighed, relief evident in the way his shoulders relaxed and his eyes slid shut for a moment. "Excellent. Go and tell them that the spell is done, and I must rest before executing it for any length of time." He pressed a tink into the boy's hand, making his eyes go wide. It was much more than the silver pennies he normally received, no doubt.
At any rate, he was probably glad to be shut of them, over-tipping or no. He bowed and then rabbited off quickly in the direction of the Emperor's quarters.
Ari felt about ready to fall over, exhaustion creeping into his bones from over-use and too many hours awake with nothing to do but sit and be used. Even standing up was hard.
"Look at you, such a pitiful case," Samair said with a rueful smile. When he spoke again, his words had the power of the enslavement spell behind them: "You are not too tired to clean this up. Sleep after."
He, of course, was suddenly brightly awake and rushed around cleaning the whole two days' mess up while Samair trudged off to bed. The second he was done his energy faded out of him in a rush, and he nearly passed out right there in the middle of the workroom. It was only by habit of dealing with Samair's commands that he managed to make it to his bed before he collapsed.
---
Pandemics/Epidemics
Plague was always a danger in cities, but they were rare and usually curable by magic, for those who could afford such things. The last one had been before Ari came to Padain, wreaking havoc on the city over fifty years ago.
The larger danger in Ari's view was what was commonly called winter fever. It was a known quantity, but it was a dangerous one at the same time: it could sometimes turn into fever-lung and kill a formerly strong, healthy man or woman in a matter of weeks.
It was especially bad this year, for some reason. More people than usual were progressing into fever-lung, the disease thinning out families of rich and poor alike, for the only thing that magic could do was treat symptoms.
One of Samair's twin daughters, Noela, was compassionate to the extreme; Ari had been up close to sixty hours now, and could only stumble with fatigue to the next patient, and the next, and the next, and the next.
He did not mind the enslavement bond being used this way. It was a good thing, giving people what comfort they could have.
But his mind was wandering; his mind always wandered when they used him for magic, like it was a living thing disconnected from his body and set free to roam in the space between the mental and the physical.
She looked so much like him. Kohën's influence showed up in the reddish tint to her black hair, and in her warm brown eyes. But Samair was there in the shape of her lips, and her ears, and the width of her shoulders.
And her hands. They were just like Samair's, long-fingered but not delicate. Noela gave not a whit of care whether she was delicate and pretty, and Ari loved her for it.
It wouldn't heal Samair's death, though. Nothing would heal seeing him that morning still in bed, peaceful under the ugly blotching that happened when the blood settled. If Ari had known that the night before was their last...
Noela touched his shoulder, and Ari moved with her to the next.
And the next. It was an old lady; Ari could see the death in her lungs when Noela pulled the magic through him, ugly black spots that made him shudder unpleasantly.
"She will die," Ari whispered, at the next patient's bed.
Noela did not look up from the working she was doing. She, too, had not slept in [four days]. "I know."
Ari closed his eyes against the tears, while his heart soared with affection for Noela. If only Laeno were like this, perhaps he would not mind so much being shared between them.
---
Blood/bodily fluids
"It will strengthen the bond," Samair said, as he sliced open the palm of his hand.
Ari made no move to drink the blood, as Samair had bade him. "It will make me sick; my body will not accept it."
That answer was not what Samair wanted to hear, and he invoked the enslavement bond with a vengeance; in short order Ari found himself kneeling and sucking blood from Samair's palm.
"See?" Samair said--no, he purred the word, as pleased with himself as the cat who got the cream.
He had to know very well that Ari could not answer. The nausea was beginning in the pit of his stomach, but there was also a warmth, also a sort of feeling like gentle fire spreading out from his throat to his stomach and the rest of his body.
When he started to retch, Samair pulled away.
Nothing came up, of course. It had been absorbed. But he still gagged and his body tried to expel the invasion, and it was a while before he was coherent enough to kneel again. His legs shook with the effort, and his hands were barely strong enough to clutch together in his lap.
"Very good."
Ari felt the magic being pulled through him then, and it felt slightly different from before. Easier, less disconnecting, but still sending him to another realm. Maybe not so far this time, for he could feel it when Samair helped him to stand and walk over to the couch. It was not him in control of his body, he knew.
It was Samair. It was always Samair.
"We will continue with this again next week; you must be bound by my blood as well as my person."
---
Aniversary
The children knew that one day a year, Ari was to be left alone. No spells, no talking, no nothing. Just stay away, he told them, with tears in his eyes, and they shrank away from him because Ari never yelled; Ari never cried; Ari was an artifact and not meant to be human anymore, with emotions, needs and wants and desires and memories.
He could remember the ghost of the feel of Samair's touch on his skin. Remembered sex in the rain, remembered the time that Samair invited him to join up with Kohën and him, and how they'd lavished attention on him.
Always, always he wondered if Samair had known then how little time he had.
There was no way he couldn't have known, and yet-- and yet...
Ari blinked, and the tears collecting in his eyes rolled down his cheeks. He ghosted his fingers over his own arms, putting his head back and closing his eyes. Hands hugged him tightly, and he could almost remember the sound of Samair's voice. He could almost remember the taste of his brother, fresh from the bath.
But he could never quite recall it. The taste, the smell, the sound. All he had left were these memories, the sensation of hands touching him.
The memory of being cherished, rather than being taken for granted, as he now was, nearly a hundred years into his enslavement, his immortality.
Ari sniffed and stopped hugging himself for a moment to wipe away tears from his eyes.
Longest night. The name was cruelly apropos; he couldn't imagine a night lasting longer than this. It had always been for better or for worse, Before.
Maybe one day it would be for the better again, but Ari had learned not to hope, learned not to dream, learned to live in his memories.
"Ari?" A hesitant voice came from the shadows, the secret door into his room.
It was Hadír again; that child was always coming at the most inopportune times. "It's past your bedtime, isn't it?" Ari asked, soft so that the heaviness in his voice from crying might not show so much.
"I couldn't sleep when you're hurting," Hadír said, as if it should be obvious. "And it's longest night, and I am eight now; I'm allowed to stay up until the bonfire burns out if I like."
He had no idea what to say to that. "What can I say that will make you leave me?"
Hadír's smile was bright even in the darkness of the room. "Nothing."
Ari sighed, and sniffed, and wiped off his face once more. "Come here, then." He held his arms open.
"You can tell me about it," the child said as he settled in Ari's arms.
Maybe in another five years, Ari thought. So long as Hadír didn't change over those years.
---
Washing/cleaning
They are piled into a cart to return to the palace grounds. Noela falls asleep on the way, despite the jolts and jostling of the carriage, and Ari nearly manages it, but his last order was to stay awake and he hasn't been told anything since then to revoke that.
Still, he's having trouble seeing straight when they're led out of the cart. The guards carry them, after the first time Noela falls, and deposit them both in Noela's oversized bed. She'll share it with a husband, one day.
Sleepily, she mumbles, "Go to sleep, Ari," and the world becomes nothing between one breath and the next.
He's not sure how long he sleeps, but he wakes up first. After that he dozes on and off, one hand on Noela's waist so he'll be able to feel it the second she wakes up.
When she does, it is slow, by stages, and for a time they simply lie in bed together. It's simple and decent, and Ari does not prevent himself from enjoying it in any way he can. These days he takes his pleasures where he can find them, no matter where that might be.
"We stink," Noela declares, at last. She sits up enough to ring one of the bells by the bed, and they can both hear the water being poured into two different tubs in the connected bathing-room. It's private; Samair always preferred things to be private. "Come, my faithful follower. We will get clean."
It's not sexual, the way she cares for him. He has no idea how much she is or is not attracted to men--Noela's been better at keeping secret her affairs than the other children, so far--but he cannot see her as anything other than the little girl he carried around on his shoulders; the little girl who made him crowns of flowers and demanded that he wear them until they wilted.
Ari gladly submits to the feeling of her hands on him, scrubbing with just enough vigor to get out the dirt of [four days] from his skin. He follows her directions, moving this way and that, dipping into the tub, and by the time she's finished he is clean and the water is dirty.
Her smile is beautiful; it looks exactly like Samair's.
"Thank you," he murmurs, and means it with all of his heart. She is not like her sister.
Noela smiles a little wider. "Think nothing of it, Ari, so long as you wash me in return."
He had been required to do much worse things since he was enslaved. This order he obeys with happiness, showing her all the care she has shown for him.
---
Orgasm denial/control
It started so innocently: "You miss him too," Kohën said, with sympathy rather than pity in her eyes.
Had it been pity, Ari would have turned and walked away from her, back to his chamber. She might be the one technically in control of him, but she did not have the bond of blood that was required to control him. It was not possible for her to order him about, thank goodness.
But Ari was moved by her sympathy, and accepted her dinner invitation. It was a small, private dinner, and by the end of it Ari was quite drunk off of the lovely wine, the likes of which he hadn't had for years; wine made it all the more difficult for Samair to funnel magic through him.
"Yes, but you knew him longer," she was saying. "I cannot imagine how you feel. Is there anything to be done? Anything at all."
They sat piled together by merit of alcohol on her loveseat, and although Ari had never been attracted to women before, this was his one last connection to his brother. The person he had held most dear, after Ari and the twin girls he'd had with Kohën.
He did not mean for it to happen, and perhaps she did not mean for it to happen either, but it did: they kissed. Ari touched her jaw and she looked up at him, and in that moment the world felt right again. She did not shy away from it, either, opening her mouth under his and scooting just that fractional bit closer.
By the end of the kiss, Ari was crying the tears he had not been able to shed for the last month.
"It's okay," Kohën whispered in his ear and stroked Ari's hair.
For once, it was. Ari merely kissed her again, sliding one hand from her shoulder down to her waist, and the wide curve of her hips; she was a woman meant for bearing children, if that was anything to go by.
Kohën crawled into his lap and kissed him again and again, pieces of clothing absenting themselves between kisses until they were both naked and stretched out on the floor, kissing and rocking against one another. She was not a small woman, and fit perfectly against Ari's counterfeit body. He wanted to see what she felt like against his real form; he wanted to know what Samair had felt at this moment.
"He wanted this," she murmured later, when she had pressed him onto his back and climbed atop him once more. "He wanted this, Ari. He told me so."
Ari could believe it, and it was just what he needed to hear, but it made tears spill down his cheeks again, even as he could feel the orgasm beginning to coil tightly in his belly.
This first time she stopped, Ari was willing to believe it accident: he was crying, and obviously needed to be kissed back to happiness, his cock left glistening with her fluids, cooled by the air in the room.
She resumed, but stopped again as he grew near to orgasm, this time with a wicked smile on her lips.
Ari knew beyond a shadow of a doubt: Samair wanted this too. This exertion of control over him, even without the bond. He could have hated his brother, right then, but he was preoccupied with Kohën settling between his legs and placing his cock between her breasts and--
But it wasn't sexy, not at all, not when Ari didn't enjoy sex with women. He squirmed a little, uncomfortably, and she figured it out. Possibly also because of his rapidly softening cock, but that was soon remedied with more kisses and talk of Samair--how he would have played this bit of lovemaking.
How he would have directed with that cool tone of his voice that meant he wasn't allowing himself to take any interest but the purely academic; how he would have rewarded Ari with a good solid fucking afterward.
"I have instruments," she said, the third time she stopped. This time she played aimlessly with his cock, to ensure it remained erect. "Implements. The kind that I can use to penetrate you."
Oh.
Ari swallowed. He wasn't sure he was ready for that, just yet. "Maybe another time?" The words were tacit approval of the situation, tacit approval of the relationship. They could not marry, for Ari was property and not a free man, but they could have as much sex as they liked.
Maybe Ari would end up not thinking women were that bad after all. It was quite nice to have sex last so long--even if he hated the way it felt to be cut off right before orgasm each time, his breath catching and entire body tense and still that smug look on Kohën's face--without having to add more oil, or worry about tearing, or the like.
Just about the time Ari caught his breath again, she mounted him once more. He closed his eyes and groaned, hands going to her waist to hold her gently; up until now he had avoided touching her.
This time when she moved to get off of his cock, he held her hips tightly and arched up into her, once and twice and more. He'd lost count by the time that he came, but all that really mattered was delicious pleasure flooding his senses and the way she clenched around him and reached down to rub herself.
Not familiar with female anatomy, he had no proper idea of what she did, but she tightened around him further and cried out, her other hand gripping his arm and her head thrown back. The sound she made had a sort of drawn out property, and by the time it ended she had let herself down to lay on Ari's chest, Ari's cock still inside of her.
He could feel her throbbing around him; it was a most peculiar feeling.
There was no need to ask if she enjoyed it, or if Ari had enjoyed it, so they lay in silence until she said, "Do you suppose that it will be twins again?"
Ari had not even thought about pregnancy, but if Samair had wanted Kohën to sleep with Ari then it stood to reason his motive was more children. They might not be the ones to receive his bond, but they could be married into Samair's direct line. Ari sighed, closing his eyes. "Is it common in your family?"
"Oh, yes," Kohën murmured, and yawned. "In yours as well, I hear."
Very suddenly, Ari knew exactly why Samair had chosen Kohën. He wondered if she knew, or if she merely supposed that he had gotten lucky.
"Samair left detailed instructions on how to raise his brood," she added, answering his question nicely.
Ari was glad that he was too tired to feel much other than exasperation. Samair did nothing by halves. He'd always known it and now it was being proved beyond a shadow of a doubt.
As if he'd ever needed proof, after the enslavement spell.
---
Free Space - Birth/children
Births were always a miracle to Ari. He knew exactly how they worked, and yet every time it happened it was like a gift. No matter how many times he saw twins, he was still delighted each time; no matter how many single babies were born, he was still excited to see them.
Most of all, he loved to watch them grow. He loved to see how the meshing of the mother and father's traits manifested; he would spend hours watching the children play and observing how certain traits were passed on and certain traits never seemed to make it to the next generation.
There were children with Samair's cold pragmatism, Leano being the first. But even one of Noela's children had it, too, that calculating sort of look; Reyi might not win every battle but she held out and always ended up on top when everything was said and done.
She was the first to marry one of Ari's children. Audie followed after, announcing the engagement days after she came of age; she'd always hadlways had such hero-worship for her older cousin so it was no surprise.
It amused Ari, over the decades, the way the lines were variably traced through women and men, depending on who was of the blood and who had been brought into the family--a cousin or someone entirely new.
The outrage when Sekei married Thyle rather than some cousin had been awful, but Arimas loved his caramel skin and loved even more the way it showed up in their children, lightened a bit, but different from the rest of the family and their pale looks.
Yes, births were a miracle, and sometimes Ari thought that they were the only things that made it worth it to endure the passing of so much time. He would not trade the births for anything.
---
Sensation Play
Samair figures out that Ari goes to That Other Place when he's used about three months after Samair marries Kohën. Her belly is growing by the day, and they can feel the baby--or babies--inside kicking every so often.
He only figures it out because Ari's supposed to be having a conversation with her while Samair works on some spell or another, and as soon as Samair reaches for Ari with his magic he's floating away, away.
He tries to resist it, but he can't move his mouth and it's like he's watching himself, but still seeing through his eyes. Still feeling things, but in an absent way, not quite parsing that the things are happening to him even if he knows that they're happening.
"We'll test it," Samair says, with a gleam in in his eye.
The first tests are light, playful: feathers, Kohën's hair, fingertips. A tongue, ghosting along the inside of Ari's thigh. Ari feels more than he sees, his head not quite wanting to look; it's easier to keep his eyes shut.
The last, fingers and tongue on that sensitive area, are Kohën and Ari might have been bothered some other time. Now, he's too disconnected to mind. His body is too sluggish to respond before she, at Samair's command, pulls away.
Ari tries to say something, but his mouth is even less cooperative than his body. They're already moving on to other things by the time that Ari manages a random-sounding "Naahhh."
Samair's glee is obvious; Kohën mirrors him.
They touch and tease and Ari is lost in it, in the magic and the sensations he can't quite connect to. And the way their voices seem to come from farther and farther away the longer it continues.
The longer the spell continues too. This is how it is, though.
When Samair must work long spells.
Weight above him; Ari's eyes open slowly, his head turning by its own volition. Kohën, her dress hiked up and spilling over him.
"There is no danger," she assures him, like he asked.
Why would there be danger?
Kohën finds one of Ari's hands and places it on her hip, and he remembers by merit of the bulge he sees for a moment before his eyes close again.
She's hot around him, slick. Weight shifting. They've done this before. Haven't they? Maybe.
There's pleasure in there somewhere, but it washes over him like water. Pleasure making his hair wet. He holds his breath, so he won't drown.
Or tries to. He doesn't quite manage it.
"Oh, quit using him--he's no fun like this."
Samair lets go the magic, and Ari drifts back into his body. It's a slow process, when he was so far away; Kohën slaps him once to speed it along and Samair just laughs. "You should have more patience."
"Why?" she asks, all innocence.
Samair laughs again, and when Ari reaches up to touch Kohën, his hand obeys him in a reasonable amount of time. He touches her face, her breasts through the dress, and the swell of her stomach.
Thus, she knows he is back. "Much better."
And Ari lays back and lets her use him, the same as he allows Samair.
---
Chance Encounters
If it weren't for Tirel's distinctively curly, bright red hair, Ari is pretty sure that he would have never recognized the boy. Well, boy--the last time Ari had seen him, he was five. Now he is twenty-five and a fine figure of masculinity.
Ari doesn't ask why he's here; Ari doesn't do anything but walk up to him and whisper in his ear: "Tirel."
He jumps, his ear-length curls bouncing with the movement, and Ari smiles brightly. Not for the first time, he wishes he still looked like himself; he wishes that someone might recognize him as someone other than--
"Kalas? I thought you were older?"
Ari shakes his head. "No. I'm Arimas." Samair's spells, his proscriptions against Ari telling his name, died with him.
Tirel touches Ari's face, laughing and shaking his head. "It's--impossible. You died--you and Samair both."
The reminder of how alone he is right now stings, even if it's been fifteen years since Samair died. It always hurts, that reminder. "Our lives there died. But-- come, I... I would have your company, if you would give it.
"Of course," Tirel says, smile bright and handsome and everything Ari wants. A reminder of the past, even if painful, is welcome in so many ways.
---
Enclosed Spaces
The first time that someone tried to steal him, Ari realized the sense of Samair telling Ari to use the one power that was his: to switch to bird-form every night before bed. Samair didn't put the force of the bond behind his words, so Ari didn't always do as he was told.
It was one such night that a would-be kidnapper stole into his rooms and he woke up to being tied up.
He transformed at once; he was long used to doing it by reflex when something unpleasant was happening. The power had seen him escaped from many fights back home.
Ari fought the reflexive sorrow that wanted to wash over him at the memory of home and beat his wings until he was free of the cloth that the man was attempting to bind his wrists with. The night vision of his particular species of bird--if it was even a real species at all; he'd never seen one quite like him--was even worse than his normal night vision, so he ended up flapping around blindly until he pretty much ran into the wall.
The hit dazed him and he ended up on the floor. But he was near enough to the low couch in his rooms that he could hop under it.
His heart beat fast in his brest, and he felt himself quivering all over. To comfort himself, he pruned at his feathers while he listened to the man thrash around trying to find him. The guy eventually pulled out a light stone so that he could see properly; Ari was not close enough to see it well, but he could see the reflection of the light on the floor.
It seemed an eternity before the would-be kidnapper gave up and left.
Even then, Ari could not make himself come out from under the couch. He fell asleep there, and when he woke it was to Samair pulling him out from under the couch with gentle hands.
"Let me guess: you didn't do as I told you, and a kidnapper appeared?"
Not wanting to give confirmation or denial, Ari merely blinked at Samair. Who scowled. "Fine. Keep your silence. But you'll be a caged bird until you do."
Thus, Ari ended up caged in a physical sense. It was a pretty cage, to be sure, and he had enough room to hop around, but it was still a cage and he itched to be free of it.
Not so badly that he wanted to tell Samair what had happened, though. He was fairly sure that whatever Samair did would make this punishment seem like nothing.
And an added benefit of being a bird: Ari didn't have to attend court functions. Samair could still use him, like this, for magic required Ari's presence and did not differentiate if his form was that of a songbird or a man.
He grew so used to being in this form that when Samair announced to Ari his plans to marry Kohën and have children who might control Ari as Samair did, it felt almost unnatural to switch to human form again. "What?"
Samair just smiled smugly. "You will be my heirloom, Ari. What do you think of that?"
Ari just switched forms again, straight back to songbird, and flew to the rafters and stayed there.
Samair's laughter didn't sound the least bit sorry.
---
Illness (major/minor)
Ari can only remember he and Samair getting sick once. It was when they were seven, and the fever confined them to their beds for days; the resulting weakness took nearly a month to get over.
Samair spends as much time sick as he does well, after they're in the capital.
"Don't worry," he says, quite often, though usually he wheezes or coughs or says the word with a shaky, unsteady breath. "I'll get over it soon enough."
It isn't until after Samair dies that Ari figures it out: the sacrifice of the caster. Samair didn't circumvent it entirely by sacrificing the things he did; he fed it his life force as well, and his health.
Everything.
Ari isn't sure whether to be glad that the future generations of Samair's family will never suffer the same, or bitter that Samair hid it from him.
He has enough bitterness in him, he decides, after Kohën gets pregnant by Ari. He'll just be glad that his child--or children, with Kohën's family's propensity toward twins--will be gifted with the fruits of Samair's sacrifice.
There is no way to go back and fix it; he has to move forward.
---
Secret Admirer
Hadír is Ari's favorite of this generation, so far. He's an adorable child, and he grows up to be an adorable youth, then an awkwardly adorable teenager.
Somewhere in there, Hadír develops a crush on Ari. He couldn't say when it happened, exactly, except that one day the shy gifts that Hadír had always given to Ari became something more than simple trinkets, and the light of expectation started to shine in his eyes when he gave over the gifts.
"Thank you," Ari tells him, with a smile.
Hadír smiles back, but shyly. "You're welcome. I--I made it just for you. My magic's not good enough to work well with the copper, but one day..."
Ari wants to reach out and ruffle his hair like the boy is still ten, but he's fifteen now and that would be uncomfortable for both of them. He loves the fact that Hadír determinedly works with his own magic, not abusing Ari, to make the trinkets.
This one is a flower, the kind that grow in the winter on vines in the eastern garden, delicate but slightly misshapen. Hadír would grow up to be a good craftsman one day if he kept at it.
And then, sometime around his sixteenth birthday, Hadír abruptly loses interest in magic.
"I don't understand it," Hadír says, scathingly, one day when he's visiting with Ari after [his brother] has finished using Ari for a few spells. "He doesn't understand the sacrifice that went into making you and he just, he takes you for granted and he really shouldn't do that."
This is harder to deal with than anything has been in over a hundred years; no one's cared about him this way.
And then comes the diary. "I'm trying to figure this out," Hadír says, and sits down next to Ari on the cushions. It's an old book, hand-written, and he realizes with a start that it's Samair's handwriting. "No one's been able to figure out what this chapter means; it's not written in the same cifer as the rest of the book. Here, see?" He turns to the chapter.
With a start Ari realizes that it's really written in a language no one else knows; it's written in the language he and Samair made up when they were children. Not uncommon between twins, but they developed their own alphabet too, making anything written in it that much less deciferable.
"I know how to translate this," he murmurs, taking the book carefully. "It's written--do you and [his brother] have your own language?"
"Sort of?" Hadír shrugs. "It's a bit of a creole, really, but it works for us when we don't want other people to understand what we're saying."
Ari nods, but absently; he's already focused on translating the chapter.
Samair said that the knowledge of what he had done would die with him, but that was a lie; the knowledge was here. The alignments of the sun and moon and the solstice; the things he sacrificed. The way the spell was woven; the circle he drew.
Everything.
Ari sets the book down in his lap with shaking fingers. "It's all here." He has learned quite a bit about magic, over the years, and can tell that nothing has been left out. Amazing. "He-- he said that it would die with him. The knowledge of how to do it. But-- but this..." He touches the page delicately, wondering at Samair's secrecy; no one else would have been able to translate it.
Whoever discovered the secret would have to be someone who shared with Ari.
To say that Ari is floored by this was a massive understatement, but he cannot sit alone and wonder at it; Hadír stirs next to him. "Ari-- does this say how to take the enchantment off?" he asks, but softly, as if he's afraid to disturb Ari's retreat into his thoughts.
Ari looks down again, and begins flipping pages slowly, poring over the information. There is just so much of it; Ari wonders anew that Samair managed to keep all of it in his head while he was planning the spell's execution.
There are musings here and there, off notes on the way things might be counteracted, but no detailed information on how to release the spell. "No, it... it's just how it was put on."
Hadir nods. "But now that we know how it was done, we can start working backwards. Do you want to?"
Ari does, more than anything else in the world.
---
Voyeurism
Samair did this sometimes: made Ari watch when he and Kohën made love. He did not say anything to Ari beyond ordering him to sit quietly and observe, but the positions offered the best view so Ari knew that he had not been forgotten.
"Ah," Kohën gasped, the sort of sound that meant that she was on the brink of coming; this only from Samair's mouth and hands, as she was too far along for intercourse to be safely managed. She probably could not see him, considering the distended bulge of twins nearly ready to be born, but Ari could see the well-pleased expression on Samair's face as he fell upon his task with a passion.
Kohën liked it best when he simply curled his fingers inside of her, and Ari could see from the tendons in his wrist that this was what he was doing, whith higher frequency, as he licked and sucked at the rest of her.
She came in short order with a high, drawn-out cry that even Ari could not be unaffected by.
"Mmmm," she hummed in the aftermath, sprawling bonelessly on the bed. Samair settled down beside her and kissed her and murmured words too soft for Ari to hear. Kohën smiled at the words, and nodded, and Ari had a fairly good idea what Samair was saying.
His guess was proven right when Samair lifted himself neatly from the bed and stalked across the room to pin Ari where he was in the oversized chair with a kiss. It was brutal but effective, making Ari still pant and shake even after Samair had pulled away again.
"Kneel," Samair said, in a low growl.
But he was not willing to let Ari do it unmolested; he touched and teased and stripped Ari, until Ari was as naked as he by the time he had knelt, leaning his front half on the chair, ass in the air.
"Presumptuous." He said it like it amused him, though, and Ari was fairly sure that Samair got a bit of a thrill from jerking Ari backward onto his knees and climbing into the chair himself, cock sticking out like a beacon.
This at least needed no instruction; Ari leaned forward and closed his mouth around his brother's cock and sucked for all that he was worth. He knew by now exactly how Samair liked it and did his best to deliver, although he could not from this angle easily slide a finger into Samair's entrance.
There were plenty other tricks for Samair, though, and Ari lost himself in them, in the simplicity of doing something and doing it the best that he possibly could. His own cock was hard before long, and less than a minute later Ari was being pulled away by his hair and they switched places, and he was returned to the leaning-over position.
At this point it was nearly an annoyance to need to apply oil, but it had been a month since they had done this and so saliva would not in this case be adequate. Samair's touch was nearly rough with haste; Ari did not dislike it.
He liked even more the feeling when Samair pushed inside, that first burn of sensation bursting inside of his mind as he clutched at the chair and did his best to take deep breaths. It was not easy, by any means, not easy at all.
But it felt good. And it was Samair doing it. There was no gentleness here, no lovemaking, just pure, hard fucking. It was a brutal, primal sort of pleasure, and Ari could not help moving back to meet Samair's thrusts, muscles straining.
At one point Ari raised his head and glanced over at the bed, and found that Kohën was watching them avidly, one hand between her legs and the other on her breast, squeezing one nipple.
Samair chose that moment to reach around and squeeze Ari's cock and order him to come.
Ari did, with the image of Kohën behind his eyes.
---
Swimming
Back home in the mountains, the river was always cold. Even at the height of summer, on the hottest day, the river was cold enough to make a swimmer's feet and hands numb after half an hour.
The river wasn't for swimming, though. It was for hopping in one of the canoes that were on the shore, turned upside down when not in use, and rowing out to see what there was to see. It wasn't as fun to walk back, the canoe carried on one's head, but the joy of the ride made it worth it.
Compared to the river, the ocean was warm. Ari never understood people complaining about the temperature, and he and Samair shared secret grins whenever someone did and they were both around.
They'd learned to swim in the river's swift and sometimes relentless current, so the ocean was no problem for neither Ari nor Samair.
The ocean was for swimming, and they laughed at the pleasure of it: of being in the water and not having one's fingers and toes go numb, of playing like children in the lagoon two hours' ride from Padain, of kissing underwater until they could hold their breath no more, of weightlessness in the water and the rocks against Ari's back when Samair pressed him there.
Samair never told Kohën of the lagoon; the secret of it might have died with him.
Kohën and Ari went to a town in the mountains, by a river--not home, but similar enough to make Ari's heart ache--to teach both Samair's and Ari's children to swim. Noela and Laeno were seven, and Leabo and Beloa five. The river here was not as wide or swift as the one Ari had grown up with, nor as cold, but it was just as good of a teacher: by the end of the summer, both sets had learned well how to master the water and Ari and Kohën never after feared that the children might drown while playing.
Ari could not stand for the secret of the lagoon to die with Samair, though. He brought Kohën and the girls--Leabo deciding that going swimming in a lagoon was below him and he'd rather stay home and learn more magic--when Ari's twins were ten.
"How did you know of this?" Kohën asked, as they watched the girls play, dunking one another, laughing, screaming.
Ari hesitated.
But his silence said what his words could not, and Kohën reached over and squeezed his hand. "I am glad you decided to share it with us too. I think he would have wanted it that way."
"Thank you," Ari said, simply, and leaned against her.
Card two has only one story, because I very suddenly had to find a place to move and pack all my shit. The world is one with three characters that I'll be writing all next year for SSBB.
---
Distress (and rescue)
"I didn't ask to be rescued," Mikel murmured, like the ungrateful bastard that he was.
I ignored it, because it was only Mikel being Mikel, but Tola was young and full of vim and ready to defend my honor to the death: "You surely needed rescuing."
Mikel growled at him, and Tola made a high-pitched sound and nearly bowled me over as he shied away. Sorry, he's a little... overbearing, he sent to me telepathically--it was the major mode of communication for him back home among the elves--and I smiled for more than one reason.
Don't think I'm some fucking hume like Aleks who needs an implant to communicate with the mind, Mikel sent, and I could not help barking a laugh.
Tola and Mikel were fairly well matched, if they didn't kill each other first. Maybe the three of us might even... No, I told myself firmly. Tola is jealous in his heart, and Mikel would wander off and he'd take it too personally. It would not work, for all that I wanted badly to have both of them. Together, rather than separate.
"You're a scrub," Tola informed Mikel, after a long moment of shocked silence. "And if you ever need rescuing again, I won't be helping to get you away."
"I don't want your help," Mikel said, voice low and gruff and dangerous.
Tola shied away again, but bravely returned, "I won't be giving it again, then."
"Good!"
"Good."
I wondered absently how quickly Tola might relinquish his promise, if he were to see Mikel in trouble again. Silently, I placed a bet with myself. "I'm glad it's settled, then."
"Oh shut up," Mikel said, exasperated, and Tola merely blushed.
And I loved both of them even more, for their individual reactions.
Card one has 17 pieces (500-1k words, generally; two bingos + other stories) set in the world of Heirloom, a longer novel that I have no fucking clue what I'm going to do with. These stories are set all over the place, though mostly in the time right after Samair and Ari arrive at the capital.
It's a pretty downer story/universe (this is what happens when your twin brother turns you into an immortal artifact) and so most of the stories are kind of downers. Also, incest. /forewarning.
---
Mistaken Identity
"Kallas!" someone called out behind Ari, the sound of his voice echoing down the halls of the palace quickly drowned out by the sound of his boots as he ran to catch up to Ari.
By all rights, he could turn coldly away and not say anything. Samair would have a fit if he found Ari talking to random strangers in the hall who had possibly grown up in the same place they had.
In the place where Ari had been Arimas, when Ari had been free, when Ari had looked every bit his brother's twin rather than a painter's copy of their friend Kallas. Their friend... Arimas's lover.
"Kallas!" the guy called again, and now catching up to Ari put a hand on his shoulder. "Didn't you hear me? I--"
Ari turned around to face the stranger. His face looked familiar, but no name came to mind. "Who is Kallas?" It felt like betrayal to say it, like a pain in his chest fit to break his heart in two like shattering a mirror on stone. He could almost hear the tinkle of the pieces as they fell.
The stranger licked his lips nervously, probably now noticing the slight differences: Ari's eyes were black where Kalas's were hazel and Ari's hair was perhaps a few shades darker, kept cut at chin-length. Plus there was the aura of the enslavement spell that hung around him like a miasma; it seemed likely that the stranger was not very strong in the ways of magic and thus didn't feel it until he touched Ari's shoulder.
A smile was all that Ari could muster, and it came out brief and pained. So much shattered glass everywhere. "I regret that I am not your friend, and hope he is well."
"Indeed," the stranger murmured. "Carry on, then."
With a nod, Ari did exactly as he was told, resentment burning in his heart at his own damned helplessness.
---
Birthdays
Birthdays were odd things. From when they were born, theirs had been celebrated together: Arimas and Samair, the twins, every fifth day of Marís, a great wonderful party full of all their friends.
Well, all of Arimas's friends, mostly. Samair had few friends, and even fewer friends who enjoyed parties. Himself not much enjoying them either, it made sense, but Arimas had always felt bad for Samair.
This was what came of worrying for his brother, though, clearly: Samair being thrown a feast by the Emperor himself, surrounded by people far more important than Ari. He was not allowed to do more than watch from his place next to the Emperor, and wish fervently for their home, for the valley and the snow-capped peaks and the cold, cold river.
And most of all, his life back. To actually have birthdays, to not be frozen in time. To...
"Ari!" Samair called out, a little bit short of joyfully. Jubilant, certainly. "Come over here!"
Not that 'over here' was very far or very difficult. Ari obeyed, though, standing next to Samair's chair. "Yes?"
Samair simply looked at him, a glower edged with playfulness.
Resisting the urge to sigh is harder than he would have guessed it to be. He really wished Samair didn't require this type of interaction in public. "Yes, master?"
"Good boy." A hand reached up and fingers ran through his hair. "Come and sit in my lap--Kohën here is going to claim the privilege if you don't." He motioned to a red-haired girl that Ari had never met firsthand before, but had seen around the castle and around Samair especially.
Ari did his best to smile politely at her as he climbed into his brother's lap, sitting sideways so he mightn't block Samair's view. His arms came around Ari without hesitation and he and drew Ari's mouth down to his.
Samair did this sometimes. Public displays of affection. Ari didn't know who it was supposed to be impressing, but he did know that Samair never did anything without reason. He kissed back, even so, because he did not wish to be punished in public.
Eventually the kiss ended, Ari finding himself panting slightly, eyes half-closed, and an erection tenting in his simple trousers. Tactfully, Samair had laid a hand over it. He did not press or tease, simply hid, and looked up at Ari with something that might be tenderness in his eyes.
"Happy birthday," he whispered, right when Ari would have looked away.
As stupid as it was to let anything Samair did get to him, Ari's heart had no such restrictions and it soared over the moon at the soft words and the way Samair smiled after. This was the brother he loved; this was the brother he'd willingly let place an enslavement spell on him.
Samair's hand cupped around the back of Ari's neck, giving a gentle squeeze. "Now get back down; it's Kohën's turn."
"Yes, Master," Ari sighed.
---
Shower (together)
The journey from Gislin to Padain took only a week on horseback. Ari treasured it like nothing else, that week of riding alongside his brother and both of them pretending that nothing had changed.
But something had changed; they shared a bed at night. The first time was rough, like Samair was reclaiming Ari now that Ari looked so very different. "I am sorry," Samair whispered in the aftermath as they lay together covered in sweat, the sheets beneath them wet with the same sweat. "My desires escaped me; it won't happen again."
Ari tried to protest, to say that he liked it. He liked feeling the bitemarks the next morning as they dressed; he liked the soreness in his limbs from being pushed that little bit too far. They were memories of Samair that his body carried with him.
Samair would hear none of it, and ordered with the force of the enslavement spell for Ari to not speak of it again.
Two days outside of Padain, it rained. It wasn't any kind of light rain, either; it was the dangerous sort that turned the road to mud beneath their horses' hooves and forced them off of the road to find shelter wherever they might.
Their shelter was found under a weeping willow, near enough to a creek that they could hear the water begin to rush as it rained. Once the horses were tied up properly and their packs in a semi-dry place, Ari left the shelter of the willow. He turned his face toward the sky and put his arms out and laughed. The rain pounded him mercilessly, but it was a good sort of pounding.
"You're crazy!" Samair shouted, but when Ari looked at him he was smiling too.
Just like that, Ari wanted him. He kissed Samair hard, cupping Samair's neck with both his hands and holding him there. Samair kissed back happily, even laughing into the kiss.
Getting wet clothes off was no simple task, but they managed it without ripping anything and soon were lying in the grass simply rocking against one another. It was uncomplicated; sometimes they rolled and Ari was on top and other times Samair pinned Ari mercilessly and rocked so hard that Ari was sure he'd have bruises later.
The rain fell on them, between them, getting into their mouths, plastering their hair to their faces, and making the sparse grass below them slick.
At some point they came, although not together, and continued the play even after that, still laughing, still holding one another, still loving the rain. Even when it slackened a bit, it was still nice; they were already thoroughly wet.
Their game ended when a traveller happened by on the road. If he wished to endanger his horse with the potholes and mud, it was his problem, in Ari's opinion.
"Come; we'll dry off," Samair said, when Ari would have lain there in the open, unashamed of his nudity, until the sun came out again.
It was that as much as anything else that firmly reminded Ari that life was not simple any longer, and likely would never be so again.
---
Truth Serum
Samair had been touted as nothing short of a magical genius for years--ever since he'd brought Ari to the capital and presented him to the Emperor. Ari's brother used spells that hadn't been used for centuries; he created spells that no-one had ever thought of before, and likely no one without an artifact like Ari would ever use again. The sacrifice of the caster that Ari negated was too great.
Every so often, the Emperor came to request that Samair create a spell especially for a certain purpose, because the spells in use for that purpose were too taxing or too unstable or too something else undesirable. Those were Samair's favorite times, as far as Ari could tell: the times when he was commissioned.
At no other time would Samair work with such purpose, often staying up for days on end. This time, he had started out normally at first, but as the first night wore on he demanded more and more lamps. "It must be bright," he muttered to himself, several times. "It won't work if it's not bright."
Ari was left to convey the message to the servants, and by the first morning the workroom smelled heavily of lamp-oil. Samair looked up sharply when Ari went to the window to open it, and he needed no verbal command to know that he wasn't to do such a thing.
Once Samair came up with something workable, it was Ari's task to find a page and enlist him; there was no possible way that the spell could be tested on Ari himself, not when he was part of the working.
"Are you in service to the Emperor?" Samair asked over and over again, each time he tried the spell.
The boy, instructed to lie, answered No every time. It was not until late at night on the second day--they had none of them slept at all--that the spell worked.
Ari felt the way it worked like a physical thing, but the sense of mind and body disconnection he always felt when Samair worked through him kept him from realizing it at first. It was not until the boy gave a high-pitched whine that he realized what he was feeling was success. By that time the boy had cut off his sounds. Despite his effort a short squeak issued forth: "Yes!"
Samair sighed, relief evident in the way his shoulders relaxed and his eyes slid shut for a moment. "Excellent. Go and tell them that the spell is done, and I must rest before executing it for any length of time." He pressed a tink into the boy's hand, making his eyes go wide. It was much more than the silver pennies he normally received, no doubt.
At any rate, he was probably glad to be shut of them, over-tipping or no. He bowed and then rabbited off quickly in the direction of the Emperor's quarters.
Ari felt about ready to fall over, exhaustion creeping into his bones from over-use and too many hours awake with nothing to do but sit and be used. Even standing up was hard.
"Look at you, such a pitiful case," Samair said with a rueful smile. When he spoke again, his words had the power of the enslavement spell behind them: "You are not too tired to clean this up. Sleep after."
He, of course, was suddenly brightly awake and rushed around cleaning the whole two days' mess up while Samair trudged off to bed. The second he was done his energy faded out of him in a rush, and he nearly passed out right there in the middle of the workroom. It was only by habit of dealing with Samair's commands that he managed to make it to his bed before he collapsed.
---
Pandemics/Epidemics
Plague was always a danger in cities, but they were rare and usually curable by magic, for those who could afford such things. The last one had been before Ari came to Padain, wreaking havoc on the city over fifty years ago.
The larger danger in Ari's view was what was commonly called winter fever. It was a known quantity, but it was a dangerous one at the same time: it could sometimes turn into fever-lung and kill a formerly strong, healthy man or woman in a matter of weeks.
It was especially bad this year, for some reason. More people than usual were progressing into fever-lung, the disease thinning out families of rich and poor alike, for the only thing that magic could do was treat symptoms.
One of Samair's twin daughters, Noela, was compassionate to the extreme; Ari had been up close to sixty hours now, and could only stumble with fatigue to the next patient, and the next, and the next, and the next.
He did not mind the enslavement bond being used this way. It was a good thing, giving people what comfort they could have.
But his mind was wandering; his mind always wandered when they used him for magic, like it was a living thing disconnected from his body and set free to roam in the space between the mental and the physical.
She looked so much like him. Kohën's influence showed up in the reddish tint to her black hair, and in her warm brown eyes. But Samair was there in the shape of her lips, and her ears, and the width of her shoulders.
And her hands. They were just like Samair's, long-fingered but not delicate. Noela gave not a whit of care whether she was delicate and pretty, and Ari loved her for it.
It wouldn't heal Samair's death, though. Nothing would heal seeing him that morning still in bed, peaceful under the ugly blotching that happened when the blood settled. If Ari had known that the night before was their last...
Noela touched his shoulder, and Ari moved with her to the next.
And the next. It was an old lady; Ari could see the death in her lungs when Noela pulled the magic through him, ugly black spots that made him shudder unpleasantly.
"She will die," Ari whispered, at the next patient's bed.
Noela did not look up from the working she was doing. She, too, had not slept in [four days]. "I know."
Ari closed his eyes against the tears, while his heart soared with affection for Noela. If only Laeno were like this, perhaps he would not mind so much being shared between them.
---
Blood/bodily fluids
"It will strengthen the bond," Samair said, as he sliced open the palm of his hand.
Ari made no move to drink the blood, as Samair had bade him. "It will make me sick; my body will not accept it."
That answer was not what Samair wanted to hear, and he invoked the enslavement bond with a vengeance; in short order Ari found himself kneeling and sucking blood from Samair's palm.
"See?" Samair said--no, he purred the word, as pleased with himself as the cat who got the cream.
He had to know very well that Ari could not answer. The nausea was beginning in the pit of his stomach, but there was also a warmth, also a sort of feeling like gentle fire spreading out from his throat to his stomach and the rest of his body.
When he started to retch, Samair pulled away.
Nothing came up, of course. It had been absorbed. But he still gagged and his body tried to expel the invasion, and it was a while before he was coherent enough to kneel again. His legs shook with the effort, and his hands were barely strong enough to clutch together in his lap.
"Very good."
Ari felt the magic being pulled through him then, and it felt slightly different from before. Easier, less disconnecting, but still sending him to another realm. Maybe not so far this time, for he could feel it when Samair helped him to stand and walk over to the couch. It was not him in control of his body, he knew.
It was Samair. It was always Samair.
"We will continue with this again next week; you must be bound by my blood as well as my person."
---
Aniversary
The children knew that one day a year, Ari was to be left alone. No spells, no talking, no nothing. Just stay away, he told them, with tears in his eyes, and they shrank away from him because Ari never yelled; Ari never cried; Ari was an artifact and not meant to be human anymore, with emotions, needs and wants and desires and memories.
He could remember the ghost of the feel of Samair's touch on his skin. Remembered sex in the rain, remembered the time that Samair invited him to join up with Kohën and him, and how they'd lavished attention on him.
Always, always he wondered if Samair had known then how little time he had.
There was no way he couldn't have known, and yet-- and yet...
Ari blinked, and the tears collecting in his eyes rolled down his cheeks. He ghosted his fingers over his own arms, putting his head back and closing his eyes. Hands hugged him tightly, and he could almost remember the sound of Samair's voice. He could almost remember the taste of his brother, fresh from the bath.
But he could never quite recall it. The taste, the smell, the sound. All he had left were these memories, the sensation of hands touching him.
The memory of being cherished, rather than being taken for granted, as he now was, nearly a hundred years into his enslavement, his immortality.
Ari sniffed and stopped hugging himself for a moment to wipe away tears from his eyes.
Longest night. The name was cruelly apropos; he couldn't imagine a night lasting longer than this. It had always been for better or for worse, Before.
Maybe one day it would be for the better again, but Ari had learned not to hope, learned not to dream, learned to live in his memories.
"Ari?" A hesitant voice came from the shadows, the secret door into his room.
It was Hadír again; that child was always coming at the most inopportune times. "It's past your bedtime, isn't it?" Ari asked, soft so that the heaviness in his voice from crying might not show so much.
"I couldn't sleep when you're hurting," Hadír said, as if it should be obvious. "And it's longest night, and I am eight now; I'm allowed to stay up until the bonfire burns out if I like."
He had no idea what to say to that. "What can I say that will make you leave me?"
Hadír's smile was bright even in the darkness of the room. "Nothing."
Ari sighed, and sniffed, and wiped off his face once more. "Come here, then." He held his arms open.
"You can tell me about it," the child said as he settled in Ari's arms.
Maybe in another five years, Ari thought. So long as Hadír didn't change over those years.
---
Washing/cleaning
They are piled into a cart to return to the palace grounds. Noela falls asleep on the way, despite the jolts and jostling of the carriage, and Ari nearly manages it, but his last order was to stay awake and he hasn't been told anything since then to revoke that.
Still, he's having trouble seeing straight when they're led out of the cart. The guards carry them, after the first time Noela falls, and deposit them both in Noela's oversized bed. She'll share it with a husband, one day.
Sleepily, she mumbles, "Go to sleep, Ari," and the world becomes nothing between one breath and the next.
He's not sure how long he sleeps, but he wakes up first. After that he dozes on and off, one hand on Noela's waist so he'll be able to feel it the second she wakes up.
When she does, it is slow, by stages, and for a time they simply lie in bed together. It's simple and decent, and Ari does not prevent himself from enjoying it in any way he can. These days he takes his pleasures where he can find them, no matter where that might be.
"We stink," Noela declares, at last. She sits up enough to ring one of the bells by the bed, and they can both hear the water being poured into two different tubs in the connected bathing-room. It's private; Samair always preferred things to be private. "Come, my faithful follower. We will get clean."
It's not sexual, the way she cares for him. He has no idea how much she is or is not attracted to men--Noela's been better at keeping secret her affairs than the other children, so far--but he cannot see her as anything other than the little girl he carried around on his shoulders; the little girl who made him crowns of flowers and demanded that he wear them until they wilted.
Ari gladly submits to the feeling of her hands on him, scrubbing with just enough vigor to get out the dirt of [four days] from his skin. He follows her directions, moving this way and that, dipping into the tub, and by the time she's finished he is clean and the water is dirty.
Her smile is beautiful; it looks exactly like Samair's.
"Thank you," he murmurs, and means it with all of his heart. She is not like her sister.
Noela smiles a little wider. "Think nothing of it, Ari, so long as you wash me in return."
He had been required to do much worse things since he was enslaved. This order he obeys with happiness, showing her all the care she has shown for him.
---
Orgasm denial/control
It started so innocently: "You miss him too," Kohën said, with sympathy rather than pity in her eyes.
Had it been pity, Ari would have turned and walked away from her, back to his chamber. She might be the one technically in control of him, but she did not have the bond of blood that was required to control him. It was not possible for her to order him about, thank goodness.
But Ari was moved by her sympathy, and accepted her dinner invitation. It was a small, private dinner, and by the end of it Ari was quite drunk off of the lovely wine, the likes of which he hadn't had for years; wine made it all the more difficult for Samair to funnel magic through him.
"Yes, but you knew him longer," she was saying. "I cannot imagine how you feel. Is there anything to be done? Anything at all."
They sat piled together by merit of alcohol on her loveseat, and although Ari had never been attracted to women before, this was his one last connection to his brother. The person he had held most dear, after Ari and the twin girls he'd had with Kohën.
He did not mean for it to happen, and perhaps she did not mean for it to happen either, but it did: they kissed. Ari touched her jaw and she looked up at him, and in that moment the world felt right again. She did not shy away from it, either, opening her mouth under his and scooting just that fractional bit closer.
By the end of the kiss, Ari was crying the tears he had not been able to shed for the last month.
"It's okay," Kohën whispered in his ear and stroked Ari's hair.
For once, it was. Ari merely kissed her again, sliding one hand from her shoulder down to her waist, and the wide curve of her hips; she was a woman meant for bearing children, if that was anything to go by.
Kohën crawled into his lap and kissed him again and again, pieces of clothing absenting themselves between kisses until they were both naked and stretched out on the floor, kissing and rocking against one another. She was not a small woman, and fit perfectly against Ari's counterfeit body. He wanted to see what she felt like against his real form; he wanted to know what Samair had felt at this moment.
"He wanted this," she murmured later, when she had pressed him onto his back and climbed atop him once more. "He wanted this, Ari. He told me so."
Ari could believe it, and it was just what he needed to hear, but it made tears spill down his cheeks again, even as he could feel the orgasm beginning to coil tightly in his belly.
This first time she stopped, Ari was willing to believe it accident: he was crying, and obviously needed to be kissed back to happiness, his cock left glistening with her fluids, cooled by the air in the room.
She resumed, but stopped again as he grew near to orgasm, this time with a wicked smile on her lips.
Ari knew beyond a shadow of a doubt: Samair wanted this too. This exertion of control over him, even without the bond. He could have hated his brother, right then, but he was preoccupied with Kohën settling between his legs and placing his cock between her breasts and--
But it wasn't sexy, not at all, not when Ari didn't enjoy sex with women. He squirmed a little, uncomfortably, and she figured it out. Possibly also because of his rapidly softening cock, but that was soon remedied with more kisses and talk of Samair--how he would have played this bit of lovemaking.
How he would have directed with that cool tone of his voice that meant he wasn't allowing himself to take any interest but the purely academic; how he would have rewarded Ari with a good solid fucking afterward.
"I have instruments," she said, the third time she stopped. This time she played aimlessly with his cock, to ensure it remained erect. "Implements. The kind that I can use to penetrate you."
Oh.
Ari swallowed. He wasn't sure he was ready for that, just yet. "Maybe another time?" The words were tacit approval of the situation, tacit approval of the relationship. They could not marry, for Ari was property and not a free man, but they could have as much sex as they liked.
Maybe Ari would end up not thinking women were that bad after all. It was quite nice to have sex last so long--even if he hated the way it felt to be cut off right before orgasm each time, his breath catching and entire body tense and still that smug look on Kohën's face--without having to add more oil, or worry about tearing, or the like.
Just about the time Ari caught his breath again, she mounted him once more. He closed his eyes and groaned, hands going to her waist to hold her gently; up until now he had avoided touching her.
This time when she moved to get off of his cock, he held her hips tightly and arched up into her, once and twice and more. He'd lost count by the time that he came, but all that really mattered was delicious pleasure flooding his senses and the way she clenched around him and reached down to rub herself.
Not familiar with female anatomy, he had no proper idea of what she did, but she tightened around him further and cried out, her other hand gripping his arm and her head thrown back. The sound she made had a sort of drawn out property, and by the time it ended she had let herself down to lay on Ari's chest, Ari's cock still inside of her.
He could feel her throbbing around him; it was a most peculiar feeling.
There was no need to ask if she enjoyed it, or if Ari had enjoyed it, so they lay in silence until she said, "Do you suppose that it will be twins again?"
Ari had not even thought about pregnancy, but if Samair had wanted Kohën to sleep with Ari then it stood to reason his motive was more children. They might not be the ones to receive his bond, but they could be married into Samair's direct line. Ari sighed, closing his eyes. "Is it common in your family?"
"Oh, yes," Kohën murmured, and yawned. "In yours as well, I hear."
Very suddenly, Ari knew exactly why Samair had chosen Kohën. He wondered if she knew, or if she merely supposed that he had gotten lucky.
"Samair left detailed instructions on how to raise his brood," she added, answering his question nicely.
Ari was glad that he was too tired to feel much other than exasperation. Samair did nothing by halves. He'd always known it and now it was being proved beyond a shadow of a doubt.
As if he'd ever needed proof, after the enslavement spell.
---
Free Space - Birth/children
Births were always a miracle to Ari. He knew exactly how they worked, and yet every time it happened it was like a gift. No matter how many times he saw twins, he was still delighted each time; no matter how many single babies were born, he was still excited to see them.
Most of all, he loved to watch them grow. He loved to see how the meshing of the mother and father's traits manifested; he would spend hours watching the children play and observing how certain traits were passed on and certain traits never seemed to make it to the next generation.
There were children with Samair's cold pragmatism, Leano being the first. But even one of Noela's children had it, too, that calculating sort of look; Reyi might not win every battle but she held out and always ended up on top when everything was said and done.
She was the first to marry one of Ari's children. Audie followed after, announcing the engagement days after she came of age; she'd always hadlways had such hero-worship for her older cousin so it was no surprise.
It amused Ari, over the decades, the way the lines were variably traced through women and men, depending on who was of the blood and who had been brought into the family--a cousin or someone entirely new.
The outrage when Sekei married Thyle rather than some cousin had been awful, but Arimas loved his caramel skin and loved even more the way it showed up in their children, lightened a bit, but different from the rest of the family and their pale looks.
Yes, births were a miracle, and sometimes Ari thought that they were the only things that made it worth it to endure the passing of so much time. He would not trade the births for anything.
---
Sensation Play
Samair figures out that Ari goes to That Other Place when he's used about three months after Samair marries Kohën. Her belly is growing by the day, and they can feel the baby--or babies--inside kicking every so often.
He only figures it out because Ari's supposed to be having a conversation with her while Samair works on some spell or another, and as soon as Samair reaches for Ari with his magic he's floating away, away.
He tries to resist it, but he can't move his mouth and it's like he's watching himself, but still seeing through his eyes. Still feeling things, but in an absent way, not quite parsing that the things are happening to him even if he knows that they're happening.
"We'll test it," Samair says, with a gleam in in his eye.
The first tests are light, playful: feathers, Kohën's hair, fingertips. A tongue, ghosting along the inside of Ari's thigh. Ari feels more than he sees, his head not quite wanting to look; it's easier to keep his eyes shut.
The last, fingers and tongue on that sensitive area, are Kohën and Ari might have been bothered some other time. Now, he's too disconnected to mind. His body is too sluggish to respond before she, at Samair's command, pulls away.
Ari tries to say something, but his mouth is even less cooperative than his body. They're already moving on to other things by the time that Ari manages a random-sounding "Naahhh."
Samair's glee is obvious; Kohën mirrors him.
They touch and tease and Ari is lost in it, in the magic and the sensations he can't quite connect to. And the way their voices seem to come from farther and farther away the longer it continues.
The longer the spell continues too. This is how it is, though.
When Samair must work long spells.
Weight above him; Ari's eyes open slowly, his head turning by its own volition. Kohën, her dress hiked up and spilling over him.
"There is no danger," she assures him, like he asked.
Why would there be danger?
Kohën finds one of Ari's hands and places it on her hip, and he remembers by merit of the bulge he sees for a moment before his eyes close again.
She's hot around him, slick. Weight shifting. They've done this before. Haven't they? Maybe.
There's pleasure in there somewhere, but it washes over him like water. Pleasure making his hair wet. He holds his breath, so he won't drown.
Or tries to. He doesn't quite manage it.
"Oh, quit using him--he's no fun like this."
Samair lets go the magic, and Ari drifts back into his body. It's a slow process, when he was so far away; Kohën slaps him once to speed it along and Samair just laughs. "You should have more patience."
"Why?" she asks, all innocence.
Samair laughs again, and when Ari reaches up to touch Kohën, his hand obeys him in a reasonable amount of time. He touches her face, her breasts through the dress, and the swell of her stomach.
Thus, she knows he is back. "Much better."
And Ari lays back and lets her use him, the same as he allows Samair.
---
Chance Encounters
If it weren't for Tirel's distinctively curly, bright red hair, Ari is pretty sure that he would have never recognized the boy. Well, boy--the last time Ari had seen him, he was five. Now he is twenty-five and a fine figure of masculinity.
Ari doesn't ask why he's here; Ari doesn't do anything but walk up to him and whisper in his ear: "Tirel."
He jumps, his ear-length curls bouncing with the movement, and Ari smiles brightly. Not for the first time, he wishes he still looked like himself; he wishes that someone might recognize him as someone other than--
"Kalas? I thought you were older?"
Ari shakes his head. "No. I'm Arimas." Samair's spells, his proscriptions against Ari telling his name, died with him.
Tirel touches Ari's face, laughing and shaking his head. "It's--impossible. You died--you and Samair both."
The reminder of how alone he is right now stings, even if it's been fifteen years since Samair died. It always hurts, that reminder. "Our lives there died. But-- come, I... I would have your company, if you would give it.
"Of course," Tirel says, smile bright and handsome and everything Ari wants. A reminder of the past, even if painful, is welcome in so many ways.
---
Enclosed Spaces
The first time that someone tried to steal him, Ari realized the sense of Samair telling Ari to use the one power that was his: to switch to bird-form every night before bed. Samair didn't put the force of the bond behind his words, so Ari didn't always do as he was told.
It was one such night that a would-be kidnapper stole into his rooms and he woke up to being tied up.
He transformed at once; he was long used to doing it by reflex when something unpleasant was happening. The power had seen him escaped from many fights back home.
Ari fought the reflexive sorrow that wanted to wash over him at the memory of home and beat his wings until he was free of the cloth that the man was attempting to bind his wrists with. The night vision of his particular species of bird--if it was even a real species at all; he'd never seen one quite like him--was even worse than his normal night vision, so he ended up flapping around blindly until he pretty much ran into the wall.
The hit dazed him and he ended up on the floor. But he was near enough to the low couch in his rooms that he could hop under it.
His heart beat fast in his brest, and he felt himself quivering all over. To comfort himself, he pruned at his feathers while he listened to the man thrash around trying to find him. The guy eventually pulled out a light stone so that he could see properly; Ari was not close enough to see it well, but he could see the reflection of the light on the floor.
It seemed an eternity before the would-be kidnapper gave up and left.
Even then, Ari could not make himself come out from under the couch. He fell asleep there, and when he woke it was to Samair pulling him out from under the couch with gentle hands.
"Let me guess: you didn't do as I told you, and a kidnapper appeared?"
Not wanting to give confirmation or denial, Ari merely blinked at Samair. Who scowled. "Fine. Keep your silence. But you'll be a caged bird until you do."
Thus, Ari ended up caged in a physical sense. It was a pretty cage, to be sure, and he had enough room to hop around, but it was still a cage and he itched to be free of it.
Not so badly that he wanted to tell Samair what had happened, though. He was fairly sure that whatever Samair did would make this punishment seem like nothing.
And an added benefit of being a bird: Ari didn't have to attend court functions. Samair could still use him, like this, for magic required Ari's presence and did not differentiate if his form was that of a songbird or a man.
He grew so used to being in this form that when Samair announced to Ari his plans to marry Kohën and have children who might control Ari as Samair did, it felt almost unnatural to switch to human form again. "What?"
Samair just smiled smugly. "You will be my heirloom, Ari. What do you think of that?"
Ari just switched forms again, straight back to songbird, and flew to the rafters and stayed there.
Samair's laughter didn't sound the least bit sorry.
---
Illness (major/minor)
Ari can only remember he and Samair getting sick once. It was when they were seven, and the fever confined them to their beds for days; the resulting weakness took nearly a month to get over.
Samair spends as much time sick as he does well, after they're in the capital.
"Don't worry," he says, quite often, though usually he wheezes or coughs or says the word with a shaky, unsteady breath. "I'll get over it soon enough."
It isn't until after Samair dies that Ari figures it out: the sacrifice of the caster. Samair didn't circumvent it entirely by sacrificing the things he did; he fed it his life force as well, and his health.
Everything.
Ari isn't sure whether to be glad that the future generations of Samair's family will never suffer the same, or bitter that Samair hid it from him.
He has enough bitterness in him, he decides, after Kohën gets pregnant by Ari. He'll just be glad that his child--or children, with Kohën's family's propensity toward twins--will be gifted with the fruits of Samair's sacrifice.
There is no way to go back and fix it; he has to move forward.
---
Secret Admirer
Hadír is Ari's favorite of this generation, so far. He's an adorable child, and he grows up to be an adorable youth, then an awkwardly adorable teenager.
Somewhere in there, Hadír develops a crush on Ari. He couldn't say when it happened, exactly, except that one day the shy gifts that Hadír had always given to Ari became something more than simple trinkets, and the light of expectation started to shine in his eyes when he gave over the gifts.
"Thank you," Ari tells him, with a smile.
Hadír smiles back, but shyly. "You're welcome. I--I made it just for you. My magic's not good enough to work well with the copper, but one day..."
Ari wants to reach out and ruffle his hair like the boy is still ten, but he's fifteen now and that would be uncomfortable for both of them. He loves the fact that Hadír determinedly works with his own magic, not abusing Ari, to make the trinkets.
This one is a flower, the kind that grow in the winter on vines in the eastern garden, delicate but slightly misshapen. Hadír would grow up to be a good craftsman one day if he kept at it.
And then, sometime around his sixteenth birthday, Hadír abruptly loses interest in magic.
"I don't understand it," Hadír says, scathingly, one day when he's visiting with Ari after [his brother] has finished using Ari for a few spells. "He doesn't understand the sacrifice that went into making you and he just, he takes you for granted and he really shouldn't do that."
This is harder to deal with than anything has been in over a hundred years; no one's cared about him this way.
And then comes the diary. "I'm trying to figure this out," Hadír says, and sits down next to Ari on the cushions. It's an old book, hand-written, and he realizes with a start that it's Samair's handwriting. "No one's been able to figure out what this chapter means; it's not written in the same cifer as the rest of the book. Here, see?" He turns to the chapter.
With a start Ari realizes that it's really written in a language no one else knows; it's written in the language he and Samair made up when they were children. Not uncommon between twins, but they developed their own alphabet too, making anything written in it that much less deciferable.
"I know how to translate this," he murmurs, taking the book carefully. "It's written--do you and [his brother] have your own language?"
"Sort of?" Hadír shrugs. "It's a bit of a creole, really, but it works for us when we don't want other people to understand what we're saying."
Ari nods, but absently; he's already focused on translating the chapter.
Samair said that the knowledge of what he had done would die with him, but that was a lie; the knowledge was here. The alignments of the sun and moon and the solstice; the things he sacrificed. The way the spell was woven; the circle he drew.
Everything.
Ari sets the book down in his lap with shaking fingers. "It's all here." He has learned quite a bit about magic, over the years, and can tell that nothing has been left out. Amazing. "He-- he said that it would die with him. The knowledge of how to do it. But-- but this..." He touches the page delicately, wondering at Samair's secrecy; no one else would have been able to translate it.
Whoever discovered the secret would have to be someone who shared with Ari.
To say that Ari is floored by this was a massive understatement, but he cannot sit alone and wonder at it; Hadír stirs next to him. "Ari-- does this say how to take the enchantment off?" he asks, but softly, as if he's afraid to disturb Ari's retreat into his thoughts.
Ari looks down again, and begins flipping pages slowly, poring over the information. There is just so much of it; Ari wonders anew that Samair managed to keep all of it in his head while he was planning the spell's execution.
There are musings here and there, off notes on the way things might be counteracted, but no detailed information on how to release the spell. "No, it... it's just how it was put on."
Hadir nods. "But now that we know how it was done, we can start working backwards. Do you want to?"
Ari does, more than anything else in the world.
---
Voyeurism
Samair did this sometimes: made Ari watch when he and Kohën made love. He did not say anything to Ari beyond ordering him to sit quietly and observe, but the positions offered the best view so Ari knew that he had not been forgotten.
"Ah," Kohën gasped, the sort of sound that meant that she was on the brink of coming; this only from Samair's mouth and hands, as she was too far along for intercourse to be safely managed. She probably could not see him, considering the distended bulge of twins nearly ready to be born, but Ari could see the well-pleased expression on Samair's face as he fell upon his task with a passion.
Kohën liked it best when he simply curled his fingers inside of her, and Ari could see from the tendons in his wrist that this was what he was doing, whith higher frequency, as he licked and sucked at the rest of her.
She came in short order with a high, drawn-out cry that even Ari could not be unaffected by.
"Mmmm," she hummed in the aftermath, sprawling bonelessly on the bed. Samair settled down beside her and kissed her and murmured words too soft for Ari to hear. Kohën smiled at the words, and nodded, and Ari had a fairly good idea what Samair was saying.
His guess was proven right when Samair lifted himself neatly from the bed and stalked across the room to pin Ari where he was in the oversized chair with a kiss. It was brutal but effective, making Ari still pant and shake even after Samair had pulled away again.
"Kneel," Samair said, in a low growl.
But he was not willing to let Ari do it unmolested; he touched and teased and stripped Ari, until Ari was as naked as he by the time he had knelt, leaning his front half on the chair, ass in the air.
"Presumptuous." He said it like it amused him, though, and Ari was fairly sure that Samair got a bit of a thrill from jerking Ari backward onto his knees and climbing into the chair himself, cock sticking out like a beacon.
This at least needed no instruction; Ari leaned forward and closed his mouth around his brother's cock and sucked for all that he was worth. He knew by now exactly how Samair liked it and did his best to deliver, although he could not from this angle easily slide a finger into Samair's entrance.
There were plenty other tricks for Samair, though, and Ari lost himself in them, in the simplicity of doing something and doing it the best that he possibly could. His own cock was hard before long, and less than a minute later Ari was being pulled away by his hair and they switched places, and he was returned to the leaning-over position.
At this point it was nearly an annoyance to need to apply oil, but it had been a month since they had done this and so saliva would not in this case be adequate. Samair's touch was nearly rough with haste; Ari did not dislike it.
He liked even more the feeling when Samair pushed inside, that first burn of sensation bursting inside of his mind as he clutched at the chair and did his best to take deep breaths. It was not easy, by any means, not easy at all.
But it felt good. And it was Samair doing it. There was no gentleness here, no lovemaking, just pure, hard fucking. It was a brutal, primal sort of pleasure, and Ari could not help moving back to meet Samair's thrusts, muscles straining.
At one point Ari raised his head and glanced over at the bed, and found that Kohën was watching them avidly, one hand between her legs and the other on her breast, squeezing one nipple.
Samair chose that moment to reach around and squeeze Ari's cock and order him to come.
Ari did, with the image of Kohën behind his eyes.
---
Swimming
Back home in the mountains, the river was always cold. Even at the height of summer, on the hottest day, the river was cold enough to make a swimmer's feet and hands numb after half an hour.
The river wasn't for swimming, though. It was for hopping in one of the canoes that were on the shore, turned upside down when not in use, and rowing out to see what there was to see. It wasn't as fun to walk back, the canoe carried on one's head, but the joy of the ride made it worth it.
Compared to the river, the ocean was warm. Ari never understood people complaining about the temperature, and he and Samair shared secret grins whenever someone did and they were both around.
They'd learned to swim in the river's swift and sometimes relentless current, so the ocean was no problem for neither Ari nor Samair.
The ocean was for swimming, and they laughed at the pleasure of it: of being in the water and not having one's fingers and toes go numb, of playing like children in the lagoon two hours' ride from Padain, of kissing underwater until they could hold their breath no more, of weightlessness in the water and the rocks against Ari's back when Samair pressed him there.
Samair never told Kohën of the lagoon; the secret of it might have died with him.
Kohën and Ari went to a town in the mountains, by a river--not home, but similar enough to make Ari's heart ache--to teach both Samair's and Ari's children to swim. Noela and Laeno were seven, and Leabo and Beloa five. The river here was not as wide or swift as the one Ari had grown up with, nor as cold, but it was just as good of a teacher: by the end of the summer, both sets had learned well how to master the water and Ari and Kohën never after feared that the children might drown while playing.
Ari could not stand for the secret of the lagoon to die with Samair, though. He brought Kohën and the girls--Leabo deciding that going swimming in a lagoon was below him and he'd rather stay home and learn more magic--when Ari's twins were ten.
"How did you know of this?" Kohën asked, as they watched the girls play, dunking one another, laughing, screaming.
Ari hesitated.
But his silence said what his words could not, and Kohën reached over and squeezed his hand. "I am glad you decided to share it with us too. I think he would have wanted it that way."
"Thank you," Ari said, simply, and leaned against her.
Card two has only one story, because I very suddenly had to find a place to move and pack all my shit. The world is one with three characters that I'll be writing all next year for SSBB.
---
Distress (and rescue)
"I didn't ask to be rescued," Mikel murmured, like the ungrateful bastard that he was.
I ignored it, because it was only Mikel being Mikel, but Tola was young and full of vim and ready to defend my honor to the death: "You surely needed rescuing."
Mikel growled at him, and Tola made a high-pitched sound and nearly bowled me over as he shied away. Sorry, he's a little... overbearing, he sent to me telepathically--it was the major mode of communication for him back home among the elves--and I smiled for more than one reason.
Don't think I'm some fucking hume like Aleks who needs an implant to communicate with the mind, Mikel sent, and I could not help barking a laugh.
Tola and Mikel were fairly well matched, if they didn't kill each other first. Maybe the three of us might even... No, I told myself firmly. Tola is jealous in his heart, and Mikel would wander off and he'd take it too personally. It would not work, for all that I wanted badly to have both of them. Together, rather than separate.
"You're a scrub," Tola informed Mikel, after a long moment of shocked silence. "And if you ever need rescuing again, I won't be helping to get you away."
"I don't want your help," Mikel said, voice low and gruff and dangerous.
Tola shied away again, but bravely returned, "I won't be giving it again, then."
"Good!"
"Good."
I wondered absently how quickly Tola might relinquish his promise, if he were to see Mikel in trouble again. Silently, I placed a bet with myself. "I'm glad it's settled, then."
"Oh shut up," Mikel said, exasperated, and Tola merely blushed.
And I loved both of them even more, for their individual reactions.
