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She was underneath him. She wasn’t exactly sure how she got here, but at this point she wasn’t all that opposed to it. She had been feeling oddly listless the further she trekked into the dungeons; like it was hard to remember why she had cared so much about so many things before she entered.
She cared about Le’garde. She cared about being alive.
Politics and social status and the like, though… it was getting harder to remember why it all mattered.
Which was maybe why it had been strangely easy for her to strip out of her armour and let Ragnvaldr straddle her. She had asked him about his wife; how a man might like to be pleasured by a woman. She had been thinking of Le’garde when she’d asked, and she hadn’t thought to refuse when he offered to show her. He seemed nice enough, after all. He was large and intimidating at first, and a formidable ally in a fight. But he spoke to her kindly, and his touch was even kinder.
Normally the thought of bedding with a man who was practically a stranger would disgust her, would make her feel dirty. Plenty of other lady knights had lain with men, for plenty of different reasons; for pleasure, for a promotion, for political advantage. And D’arce had always looked down on them. She was determined to succeed by her own merit; for her worth to be determined by her skill in battle and her loyalty to her cause, and not by her willingness to barter her body.
That was why she was still a virgin. She was saving herself for her true love - for Le’garde. When she rescued him from these hellish dungeons and was reunited with him, she would finally confess to all of the feelings of admiration and obsession that had been swirling around in her gut and filling up her chest for so long. They would be wed, and their union would surely spell the end of conflict between the warring nations. With Le’garde’s charisma and influence, and her tireless determination to execute his ideals, they would be unstoppable.
So she had decided that Ragnvaldr was simply practice. And she could be whatever he needed her to be as well; the shadow of the wife he refused to speak of, or just a warm body; it didn’t matter all that much to her as long as she got what she wanted.
The space between them felt thick and hot as he hooked a thumb over the waistband of her hosen, pausing with a quick glance up at her. Asking for permission.
“It’s fine,” she said, feeling distant. As if she were watching the whole thing from outside her body. Watching this large man she knew nothing about undress her in a depressing pit of vines, their voices muffled by foliage and punctuated by the tinkling of bells ringing out from deeper inside the thicket. At least he had set down his robe of bear skins for her to lay down upon – they were rough but warm, and anything was better than lying directly on the ground.
It was about the furthest thing she had ever imagined about bedding down for the first time. She thought she ought to be feeling a thousand different things — nervousness and excitement and that wonderful fluttering in her chest that she felt when she looked at Le’garde. And yet…. She felt oddly numb instead.
She shivered involuntarily as her bare legs were exposed to the damp murky air. She pulled her top up over her head, exposing her breasts. Ragnvaldr’s eyes were roaming her body unabashedly, but he still seemed hesitant to touch her.
For a stranger, at least he was a gentleman.
“Tell me if you want me to stop.” Funny, she thought without any humour. He hadn’t even started.
“Sure,” she responded. She certainly didn’t plan to.
His hands traced the curves of her body slowly, trailing down her sides and over her thighs, gently cupping one of her breasts in one hand — she only noticed then how big they were. There was a strange stirring in her gut at that observation.
His other hand dipped between her legs, stroking her clothed groin gently. It was… a strange feeling. There was something warm growing in her insides. Small and quiet, but undeniably there. A pulsing. A throbbing. His touch in itself was… unremarkable. But it was stoking something inside her, little tinders that were slowly catching flame.
He pulled down her undergarments and readjusted himself, scooting himself back a bit as he eased her knees apart. D’arce watched him in wide-eyed confusion as he bowed his head between her legs and gently licked a stripe up her bare pussy. She shuddered, not so much from how his tongue felt against her, but from the sensation of the wetness chilling against her sensitive labia. But when she didn’t say anything, he continued, pressing in closer as his tongue lavished her cunt, tracing the folds of her labia and running up and down the length of her vulva. It prodded her opening, and she inhaled sharply in surprise. Well, it felt good, certainly; his soft tongue against her softer folds. But the simmering in her gut hadn’t changed, hadn't grown.
That was, until he touched… something. Something that sent a jolt through her body, so suddenly and so violently that she made to kick him away as a reflex. Luckily, he was faster – he managed to catch her leg as it swung upwards towards his face and he held it there in a firm, steady grasp as their eyes met, both equally shocked at what had just happened.
“Sorry—“ she blurted out. Oh Gods, oh Alll-Mer, this was embarrassing. She could feel her face burning as she flushed brightly, could feel a cold nervous sweat beading on the surface of her skin. “Sorry, I don’t—“
What could she even say? She didn’t even really know what she was apologizing for.
She was incredibly relieved that it wasn’t Le’garde she’d nearly kicked in the head.
Ragnvaldr, to her surprise, chuckled a bit as he released his grip on her. “It’s alright. May I?”
She nodded mutely, not trusting herself to speak as she watched Ragnvaldr reach towards her groin. She couldn’t see exactly what he was doing from this angle, but she could feel him slowly press his thumb down on that spot, and she could feel that jolt sing through her body again. She was prepared for it now though, she knew what to expect. So when she flinched in surprise, she at least managed to keep her limbs under control.
He rubbed at the spot slowly, circling it and pressing on it until at last her body stopped twitching and jerking as if out of self-defense. And now… now she could feel that fire being stoked in her belly again. It was growing rapidly now, devouring her insides. She squirmed and writhed a bit at his touch, but she didn’t move away from it. It was good. It was really good — it was like nothing she’d ever felt before.
And then he stopped, and she almost reprimanded him. But her voice died in her throat as his fingers slowly slid down her cunt, teasing at her entrance once more. A single finger slipped inside.
Oh. That was a strange feeling.
It didn’t make her body twitch and spark like the spot he had been teasing before did, but there was a distinct stretching and aching sensation as he slowly sank in deeper, as his finger curled to stroke at her insides.
“How is that?” He asked, and D’arce found it a little jarring to hear him speak in such a nonchalant, conversational tone when her body was alight with strange new sensations, and as her mind was still racing and disoriented, trying to catch up. It took her a moment to find her voice again, and another to even decide how she ought to answer the question
“Fine.”
Fine was a good way to put it, she thought. It wasn’t really good, but it certainly wasn’t bad. He gave a grunt of acknowledgement before squeezing another finger in alongside the first.
That was decidedly less fine. The stretching feeling was rather prominent now, almost an itching at her entrance. He seemed to notice her muscles tensing at the new addition, and when he moved them he did so slowly, gradually easing her body around them.
“Is this… supposed to feel good?” she asked, her voice coming out a little breathily. She winced as he prodded a rather tender spot inside her.
Ragnvaldr hummed thoughtfully, his pace gentle, but steady. “Eventually. You will be thankful for it soon.”
She thought that was a rather ominous thing to say, although Ragnvaldr’s matter-of-fact tone indicated that that wasn’t his intent. He continued fingering her insides a while longer, eventually squeezing a third finger. Her breath started to shake terribly at this last addition, and she couldn’t help shifting her hips around him desperately, trying to find a more comfortable angle. His touch was kind but relentless, never overwhelming her but his pace never lessening either. And gradually, her body grew used to this feeling too, this strange sensation of being slowly eased open, of being pried apart like a clam shell.
Finally he coaxed his fingers out from her, and she let out a shaking sigh, grateful for a moment of respite. But her relief didn’t last long; as she looked up, she could see Ragnvaldr reaching down to his own waist, shimmying out of the skins and leather, and leaving him in a loincloth that… wasn’t hiding much.
He was… big. Or at least D’arce thought he was — it wasn’t like she had much to compare it to. She could see the outline of it hanging in his undergarments and she was overcome by a wave of disgust. She quickly looked away as he inched closer, as the undergarments also slid down his hips. She didn’t want to see it. She didn’t think she actually wanted to face the reality of it.
She knew that she was being ridiculous. She knew it was as natural an appendage as an arm or a leg. And yet, she didn’t want to acknowledge it, and she certainly didn’t want to think about it… inside of her. Just the idea made her chest tighten. Made her skin crawl. She’d simply… think of something else. Imagine something else.
How hard could it be?
He gently held her thighs, prying them apart once more. Exposing herself to him. Her breath hitched, and there were alarm bells ringing insistently in her head, but she grit her teeth and steeled herself.
She was not in any danger. Not from him. She asked for this.
She asked for this.
He paused to lube himself, using the fluid from one of their precious vials. She had no choice but to listen to the sickening sounds of his hand pumping his cock as she lay there vulnerable, waiting and waiting and waiting, with her heart thumping in her throat.
Something warm and hard pressed against her, against the edge of her vulva. It wasn’t aggressive or insistent – in fact it was rather apologetic, an experimental prod more than anything – but something in her snapped. Freezing, flashing panic swept through her body and her muscles seized up.
“Wait—“
He stopped. The pressure disappeared, and he leaned back. He even released his grip on her thighs, no longer using her body as a support.
And for some reason, this made her angry. She was angry at him for stopping. She was angry at his consideration and she was angry at the space between them that he had left her to confront. She was angry at herself for saying anything. She was angry for being so damn scared.
This was nothing. This should have been nothing. So many other girls did this all the time like it was nothing.
“Are you alright, miss knight?” His voice was so gentle when he spoke. It frustrated her even more.
“I’m fine.” She could hear her voice wobbling in spite of her words.
Ragnvaldr was quiet for a moment. He sat back a bit; giving her time, giving her space. D’arce’s head fell back, looking up at the dark stone ceiling. She’d ruined it now. She didn’t want to look at him.
“This is your first time?” He asked.
She took a sharp inhale of breath. Let it out as slowly as she could, making it hiss between her teeth on its way out. Concentrated on tracing the ragged trails of grout between the stone with her eyes until her breath stopped shaking a bit.
“Yes.”
“I see. That’s why you’re so tense.”
She bit back a retort. Of course she was tense.
“Would you like to touch it first? Perhaps that might make it less frightening.”
She wanted no such thing. She couldn’t even imagine the revulsion that would be churning her gut if she were to look upon it, nevermind touch it. The mere thought threatened to make her sick.
“No,” she snapped. She could hear her fear leaking into her tone. She was trying to sound firm and instead she sounded childish. Petulant. “I said I’m fine. This is how I want it.”
He paused. She knew she’d put him in a rather difficult position acting so stubborn, and she did feel a pang of guilt for that. But she was resolute. She was seeing this through one way or another.
She wondered if it was obvious from the look of concentration on her face – her pursed lip and her furrowed brow, determined to mask her nerves – because after a few moments she could hear him give a relenting sigh.
“I’ll be sure to be gentle then,” he finally said. “Whenever you’re ready.”
He was so kind. It was infuriating. She could feel her bottom lip quivering and she bit down on it. Hard. Stupid to be emotional about it. Stupid to be frustrated.
Get it together, D’arce.
This man was just a cock. He was just practice. He didn’t mean anything, this didn’t mean anything.
“I’m ready,” she forced herself to say before she could change her mind.
And she took a deep gulp of air as he positioned himself between her legs again, and she didn’t let it out until she could feel him pressed against her once more. She shuddered, but she forced herself to be still, to be silent. She wouldn’t stop him again. She couldn’t.
“May I hold your hand, miss?” He asked.
She found it an odd thing to ask, and she looked at him rather quizzically before nodding slowly. He took her hand gingerly, and she couldn’t help but to marvel again at how large he was, how her smaller palm fit so easily into his larger one. Their hands were both rough and calloused from a life of harsh training and combat, but there was something reassuring about the pressure of a hand pressed firmly to hers. He was warm.
He slowly interlaced their fingers.
“I’ll be slow,” he promised. “Focus on our hands.”
She resented the way he was speaking to her. She felt coddled. Condescended. Looked down upon. She was a full-grown woman, even if this was new territory for her.
But then his cock started to push into her, and she felt a visceral stretch in her groin – one much harsher and sharper than she’d felt from his fingers – and she let out a hiss.
Oh— it’s painful. She didn’t think it would be painful.
“Focus,” he said again. He’d shifted his position a bit so that he was bent over her, her legs being forced upwards and around him as he pressed closer. She could see his face clearly now, and she didn’t like it — his eyes were wide with concern in the dim light and she couldn’t begin to guess what kind of emotion she was reflecting back at him. She quickly looked away from him, focusing instead on their discarded clothing heaped onto the dungeon floor.
He was squeezing her hand now. Trying to bring her attention back to him in some small way. She hesitated and then squeezed back.
It seemed to be enough.
He pushed in — oh so slowly, centimetre by measly centimetre. The stretch became an ache, made her breath come faster, made her skin break out in sweat. Her body was overwhelmed, taken aback at the intrusion forcing its way into her.
She knew pain. She was no pushover — she was a knight, for Alll-Mer’s sake. She had seen battle. She had seen death. She had suffered all manner of injuries and illnesses. But this — this was a different kind of pain, concentrated in a part of her body that was unfamiliar and untrained.
As the lip of his crown passed inside, she wasn’t able to hold back a rather unladylike groan.
“Do you need a break?” Ragnvaldr asked. She would have slapped him if one hand wasn’t clenched in his while the other was grasping at the furs beneath her.
“No.” She knew she was probably being stupid in her stubbornness. But at this point, she just wanted to get it over with. “Just… do it.”
His brows furrowed a bit — he clearly didn’t believe her, but he wasn’t about to question her either, not after she’d insisted twice now. And so he pressed further, little by little, as she squirmed and shuddered beneath him. It was smoother going now that the head had squeezed inside, but he still felt so uncomfortably large inside her. She felt heavy and trapped, unable to move freely. Even the most miniscule of movements were making her muscles ache and itch in protest.
Her body, resistant but defenceless, gradually bent to him. She could feel herself stretched around him, could feel her insides shift and move to accommodate him. He was excavating her, carving into her. Claiming her.
It was a strange feeling – not a pleasant one, certainly. He stilled for a few moments as they both caught their breath and as D’arce adjusted to the new weight sitting inside her, to the odd sensation of being meshed at the hips.
“How does it feel, miss knight?” he asked. “Does it hurt?”
No. No, it didn’t hurt. Not anymore. It was tight and strange, but she could feel her body slowly acclimating, slowly adjusting. As her breaths lengthened, her body relaxed, and the intrusion inside her felt a little less… invasive.
“It feels weird,” she finally settled on. Not nearly eloquent enough to convey the whirlwind of commotion in her head, but something to placate him. To her surprise, Ragnvaldr chuckled.
“Yes… I thought so too, at first.”
She finally looked back up at him. Properly, eye to eye. She could feel that she was frowning – there was a furrow in her brow and an involuntary curve in her lips, betraying her lingering nerves. He looked far more at ease than she felt, looking down at her with pale eyes that reflected the strange green light around them. There was the slightest smile on his lips, and he looked relieved.
She suddenly wondered if his wife had been the first person he’d done this with, but she had the tact not to ask.
“So… What now?” she asked instead. Surely this couldn’t be all there was. Surely this was not the act revered by cultists and treasured amongst lovers and used as a bargaining chip by the most lowly and unsavoury. Surely this is not the root of both life and corruption in the world.
Ragnvaldr chuckled again. “No need to be impatient,” he said in amusement. He kept one hand interlaced with hers as the other reached back down into the space between them. She let out an involuntary gasp as he touched her in that spot between her legs again, just shy of where their bodies were now connected, and a fresh rush of adrenaline and arousal flooded her body once more, easily swamping out the discomfort with white hot pleasure.
“Alll-mer,” she hissed, despite herself. She shouldn’t have been saying His name in vain, and certainly not when she was in a position like this, but there was something about it passing over her tongue that was immensely satisfying. Cathartic, even.
He started moving then. As she got used to the feeling of his fingers on the sensitive nub between her legs, she started to realize that he was slowly rocking in and out; in and out. He never separated from her completely, the crown of his cock always cozied up safely inside her, and she could feel him push deeply inside; deeper than she’d ever thought possible, making her stomach feel tense and knotted up.
But the tenseness – the tightness – felt good now. The tinders that she had felt inside her gut before were starting to catch again – a flame deep in her belly that grew hotter and wilder, feeding on the feeling of his warm and sticky palm encasing hers; on the sound of his grunting breath near her ear as he leaned over her; on the dull smack of their hips colliding over and over.
It was something like a hunger. It ached, and it twisted deep inside her gut; it clouded her brain and pervaded all rational, sensible thought until her only singular, primal desire was that to consume.
She wanted… she didn’t know what she wanted. She was unfamiliar with this hunger –- this hunger born south of her stomach. She didn’t know how to appease it, to lessen it, to tame it. She only knew she wanted more.
She could feel something shifting and writhing inside her, something expanding and building and tightening. A terrible pressure was growing inside her, and she didn’t know exactly what it meant, but she had a sense that eventually it would snap – that she wanted it to, whatever it was.
Ragnvaldr’s pace was constant, and his fingers continued stroking that wonderful point of pleasure. Her head fell back and her eyes fluttered shut as shaking gasps for breath escaped her parted lips. Her head was filled with fog, conjuring up strange and discordant images in her head as her body shook and twitched and sweat. Her scrambled thoughts conjured up the image of a snake nestled deep within her loins. It coiled restlessly about her pelvis as the fortress of her body was assailed over and over by this strange and unprecedented threat. She could feel its neck flaps flaring as it reared its head, could feel it expose its fangs threateningly and feel the shivering vibration of its hiss shoot up her spine.
It struck, and the pressure inside her broke.
The breath was nearly knocked out of her as her body was shocked — as if by lightning — her very insides contracting and tightening in waves, submerging her in a sensation she’d never felt anything like before.
This was beyond simply “feeling good”. This was euphoric. This was… enlightening.
She wasn’t sure exactly what she felt she had learned in that moment, as her mind seemed to be melting, dripping away from her body like hot wax, but it certainly felt important.
She only noticed Ragnvaldr pulling himself out of her because of the tugging sensation deep within her loins, and then suddenly her body was attempting to clamp down onto nothing but itself. It was a strangely lonesome feeling — what had been a burdensome, heavy intrusion had quickly become something of a lifeline; a physical connection keeping her grounded to her body as her soul seemed to peel itself away.
She lay there for a few long minutes, letting the waves of her orgasm crash upon her until the tide ebbed away completely, leaving her sore and empty in its wake. She sat up slowly, her head reeling as she did.
Ragnvaldr was cleaning himself off with a scrap of cloth. He seemed amused when she looked up at him, and she realized only then that she was probably wearing a stupidly bewildered expression.
“Did you enjoy yourself?” he asked, a little coyly. He already seemed to know what her answer was, and she was still too intoxicated on adrenaline and dopamine to bother coming up with a lie.
“Yes,” she answered, her voice cracking a bit in her earnestness. She cleared it a little in embarrassment. “Yes, it was… Well, I don’t know how to describe it, exactly.”
Ragnvaldr chuckled as he handed her another strip of cloth, and she dutifully started to mop up the sweat cooling on her skin and the moisture that had built up between her thighs.
“You had asked me how a woman might pleasure a man, yes?” She stopped a bit at his question, flushing in embarrassment when she realized she had forgotten the precedent of this experiment almost entirely. Thankfully, he continued, saving her from having to explain herself.
“Well, in Oldegård, there is no greater pleasure to a man than to see a woman being pleasured herself. Do you understand?”
She nodded slowly, turning this over in her mind despite it still feeling muddied and fuzzy at the edges. It was a rather simplistic way of thinking, she thought. Not exactly how she had heard the knights or citizens of Rondon talk about the relationship between a man and a woman — a relationship that was built on loyalty and obedience and servitude.
But she rather liked Ragnvaldr’s answer.
“Do you think we could, ah…” The words were tumbling out of her mouth before she was entirely aware of them, and by the time she stuttered to a stop, Ragnvaldr was already looking at her expectantly. It was far too late to take them back now.
She realized she didn’t want to take them back.
“Do you think we could do that again?”
There was still a churning in her gut, still a strange throbbing heat in her loins. Her motivations felt almost scientific this time – she desperately felt like she had to experience it again. To make sure it was real, to make sure it hadn’t all been a fluke. To make sure that when she tried it with Le’garde, she could ride out those same dizzying waves of pleasure with him, too.
Ragnvaldr laughed outright this time, a deep and hearty sound that made her jump and flush with embarrassment.
“I’ll need a little while to recover, miss knight. But certainly, we could do it again.”
He paused for a moment, and then continued, his voice lowering a bit. Almost as if he was speaking half to himself.
“Your smile is a lovely sight, miss knight — D’arce.” he corrected himself. “Like spring flowers breaking through the snow in the mountains. Heralding the sun.”
She didn’t know exactly what he was talking about. Rondon didn’t get much snow, and when it did, it was grey and dirty and dismal, with no flowers or sun to be seen. But he said it with such warmth and such conviction that it was clearly meant as a complement, and she had to believe it must have been a beautiful sight to behold. Her face grew even hotter, and she looked away reflexively, his gaze fixating stubbornly on the bear-skin that her fingers were twisting into nervously.
“Well. Thank you— What did you say your name was again?”
“Ragnvaldr,” he said, blessedly slow so that she could pick out each syllable amidst the accent of his native tongue. She repeated it back under her breath as Ragnvaldr threw his other bear-skin over himself and leaned back, letting out a long, breathy sigh. That eerie green light around them flickered and danced as they came down from their highs, as their bodies slowly recovered.
There was something niggling at the back of her mind, something Ragnvaldr had said rather casually before. She couldn’t quite remember exactly what it was, but something about it bothered her. Something about it sounded familiar — and not in a good way.
But at that moment, Ragnvaldr offered her one of the dried meat strips from his pack, and she promptly forgot.
–
“D’arce.”
Le’garde’s hand rested heavily on one of her shoulders. It was a kind-hearted gesture, meant to ease her out of her stunned trance, but she jolted harshly in surprise at his touch. She was still on her knees, her muscles aching from the strain of combat. She had been injured – not badly, but enough that she could feel wetness on her thigh where an arrow had very narrowly grazed her.
She couldn’t quite seem to move.
“Sorry.” Her voice came out in a harsh, ragged whisper. She wondered if she might cry. Or vomit. But the ice that had seemed to settle inside her chest seemed to render her incapable of either; her horror rendered her a statue, chilling her in place.
Ragnvaldr lay unmoving on his back before her, pale eyes faded and unfocused, looking up into the yawning black cavern above Ma’habre. Blood trickled from a horrific gaping wound in his head, dying his shock of red hair even darker.
“This man. Did he mean something to you?”
Le’garde’s tone sounded guarded. Like perhaps he expected her to turn on him as well. Surely she had proven where her loyalties lay at this point. Surely the bloody hole in Ragnvaldr’s head from the pommel of her sword proved that.
But did he mean something to her?
The question made her pause. She thought of how gingerly he had treated her wounds after a run-in with those oversized hounds, how gently he had cleaned them and how meticulously he had wrapped them. How he had told her stories from his homeland as he did, trying to distract her from the stinging pain.
She thought of how easily he had stepped in front of her as one of those horrific guards had advanced upon them in the catacombs; how she’d been enraged and enamoured by him all at once. She’d never admit it, but the mere sight of those things made her ill; their ghastly proportions and their even ghastlier intentions, uninhibited by any sense of humanity… they terrified her. She’d chastised him for it, though – told him that she didn’t need protection simply because she was a woman. He’d said he wanted to defend her as a comrade.
She thought of how he felt pressed flush against her, the warmth of his skin imprinted on hers and the steady beating of his heart reverberating through her ribcage. She thought of how he’d seemed to awaken something frantic and exciting inside her – a side of her she’d never been privy to before. A side of her that he took easily in stride, seemingly as eager to feed her curiosity as she was.
It hadn’t only been that one time in the thicket. She’d allowed him to take her multiple times since then. She’d asked him to, in fact.
And then she’d killed him.
She looked down into his lifeless face, with the sense that she was doing so from much, much further away.
She forced herself into motion, slowly rising to her feet. She felt Le’garde’s hand slip from her shoulder as she did, heard him take a step back. Giving her some space.
Did he mean something to her?
She looked down at the felled outlander with the most peculiar feeling. It was as though a hurricane was howling in her chest, but she was feeling it from a distance. Aimless, formless emotions that she couldn’t pick apart, couldn’t decipher. She couldn’t figure out how she was meant to feel.
They were still in the dungeons, after all. It was hard to tell what mattered anymore.
“No,” she said, her voice coming out firm and even and alien-sounding, as if it belonged to someone else. “I hardly knew him.”
–
They continued into the city of Ma’habre, Le’garde seemingly growing more and more anxious the deeper they travelled into its winding alleyways and hidden passages. She was as fascinated as she was terrified by it – it was a place of legend after all. The ancient city of Gods, seldom seen by mortals except in the most fleeting of dreams. She felt like a trespasser here. Like every towering statue was glaring down at her in disapproval, judging her worth. A part of her was half-convinced that the two of them might be smote at any moment by the all-powerful hand of Alll-Mer, mocking them for the impudence, punishing them for their sheer audacity.
Her apprehension at continuing into the heart of the city was coupled by her growing distress at Le’garde’s strange case of amnesia. In the short moments they stopped to rest, she couldn’t help but to ask him what he remembered before waking up in the dungeons, trying to gauge how large the holes in his memory were.
His answers were inconsistent. He remembered his name, and he remembered his childhood. He didn’t remember the Knights of the Midnight Sun. He remembered being brought to the dungeons, but he didn’t remember the botched campaign up north that had given the elites of Rondon the perfect excuse to put him there. He remembered his torture. He remembered his goal of uniting the nations under a single banner – his own banner.
He didn’t remember D’arce.
Ragnvaldr had said he was lying. But Ragnvaldr had turned out to be a traitor.
His strange condition and his warped personality nagged at her, and she tried to convince herself it wasn’t personal. How could it be? He couldn’t help what he could and couldn’t remember. The man had been through hell in these dungeons, much longer than she had. It was easy to imagine having lapses in memory herself if she were to be caged in here for weeks – months. Starving, and tortured and terrified.
She should be grateful he was even alive. She was grateful that he was alive.
It would just… take some getting used to.
They pressed on. It was hard to tell how much time passed here, where they couldn’t see the sky outside. And her internal clock only became more scrambled and confused once they discovered that the cube Le’garde had snatched from Ragnvaldr’s corpse had the power to transport them to a strange mirage of the city; bright and gold and hauntingly quiet, a cold sun chilling her beneath her armour as it beat down on them.
They could have been wandering the city for hours, or weeks. The passage of time was inscrutable, and their bodies and minds were becoming twisted with hunger.
They had returned to the present — to the darkness — and were huddled together in one of the abandoned houses. Her stomach ached, but it had fallen silent long ago, as if it had realized that its complaints would remain unanswered. She could feel herself slipping into unconsciousness, dizzying exhaustion weighing down her eyelids.
And then she realized she felt a hand on her hip, creeping over her thighs. She twisted her neck to look over her shoulder, dazed and disoriented.
“Le’garde?”
His voice was strange when he replied. She couldn’t see him well in the dim light of the house, but his voice was closer than she had expected, his breath caressing her ear. “D’arce. You loved me, didn’t you?”
She shivered involuntarily.
“Did you… remember?” Her mouth felt rough and dry as she asked, her voice hardly more than a whisper
His hand continued wandering, and her skin was starting to feel hot and prickly with embarrassment. Her head feels strange and light-headed, and she can’t tell if this is another one of her dreams again.
“Something like that,” he said rather vaguely. “It took me a long time to realize.”
She offered no resistance as he rolled her onto her back. She lay still and looked up wide-eyed at the darkened shape of him as he straddled her, as his hand pressed down harshly against her crotch. She flinched a bit in surprise at his touch, heavy and sudden. But he gave a low chuckle, and she forced herself to breathe deeper, to relax underneath him.
“Have you dreamt of this?” he asked curiously as he started tugging her hosen down her hips.
“Yes,” she replied in a breathy rush.
She felt a little lighter as her confession left her lips, like a weight as heavy as her armour had been lifted off her chest. How long had she dreamed of it, exactly? How long had it been since her looks of naïve admiration had turned into ones of heady adoration instead? How long had she been carrying this crushing, burdensome weight in her heart and on her shoulders, suffering in silence every time he had looked past her to the horizon? Looking for something beyond her; for something more than her.
His eyes meeting hers now, direct and focused, was almost so overwhelming that she wondered if she would simply pass out. His presence was just so concentrated, and so pure. She almost felt a sense of guilt to have him — his attention, his gaze — all to herself, even for just a moment.
Almost.
But the dungeons had fed her selfishness. And that selfishness inside her was swelling and quivering with a fervid sense of want inside her. It was the same hunger that tore away at her gut around Ragnvaldr after their tryst in the thicket; the maddening desire to consume not food, but man.
She wanted this. Alll-Mer, forgive her; she’s wanted this so badly for so long.
Her heart was thumping wildly in her chest as her undergarments followed her hosen down her legs. She was wet already – she could feel it, slick and chilled against her bared skin. Her pussy was practically throbbing with anticipation. She knew what to expect now, and she was craving it; the passionate heat of his body pressed against her, inside her; his breath warm on her face and his hands teasing her body, making her twist and writhe in pleasure.
It was a relief to know it hadn’t all been a waste; that the times Ragnvaldr fucked her had still meant something, after all. That in the end she was getting what she really wanted.
Le’garde’s hands were rough as he touched her, and he drove his fingers inside her without any ease or restraint. She let out an involuntary gasp of surprise at the chill of his digits inside her, scraping at her insides, digging deeper. Her pussy was generously slicked with her arousal, and the girth of his fingers was nothing compared to what she’d taken from Ragnvaldr, but something about it felt off. Cold and forceful. Uncaring.
It was fine, though. Perhaps he was simply inexperienced, like she had been only a mere few days – weeks? – before. She wouldn’t have expected it, but it was a rather endearing thought that perhaps Le’garde too might have been waiting for his one and only.
His fingers pumped deeper inside her, until his knuckles were grazing her entrance. His thrusts were aimless and clumsy. He didn’t linger inside her, and he didn’t stroke at her insides, seeking out her g-spot. He simply penetrated her, over and over and over again, until she was starting to feel oddly raw.
When he pulled out, it was sudden. Her pussy clenched painfully, and she was left gasping and sweating at the aching absence inside her.
He flipped her over, onto her front, and that was when her chest started to tighten, in that same terribly anxious way it did the first time she’d lain with Ragnvaldr. But Le’garde did not pause, and he did not take her hand to calm her. The physical methodology of the act they were playing out was familiar to her, but the chilling lack of intimacy was not. And she felt confused more than anything as he started to sink inside her.
The warmth of his body was a relief, but that spike of dread in her chest returned as he started to thrust inside her. His rhythm grew steadier as his pace slowly increased, and she found herself holding her breath. Waiting. Waiting. She kept waiting for him to press even deeper, for his heat to drive all the way into her very core; filling her up, splitting her open. She kept waiting for him to claim her. Properly.
But he continued as he was, rough and painfully shallow. And it started to dawn on her foggy and swirling brain that he wouldn’t. He couldn’t.
His breath was growing harsh and ragged, his movements becoming uneven and his muscles twitching, and D’arce realized with a black yawning pit in her chest that she was nowhere close to finishing. Her pussy felt raw and abused from his relentless thrusting, her clit was horribly neglected, and her deepest walls remained painfully untouched. Her face was pressed to the dirty, musty blanket they’d thrown across the floor to sleep on and he was pinning her to it, trapping her there, unable to move.
She couldn’t even look back to try to see his face.
He came inside her with a shuddering groan. Unceremonious and without fanfare. Her cunt didn’t so much as twitch as he spilled himself inside her, although she thought vaguely that the warmth of his release inside her might at least be some relief to her aching insides.
She lay there, shell-shocked by her own gaping disappointment as he pulled out of her with a relieved sigh, clumsily dismounting her and turning away from her. She felt… empty, even with his seed staining her insides. A chill was settling over her; seeping down through her skin, penetrating her bones, flowing through her veins. It felt colder than the stone beneath her, colder than the air freezing her sweat to her skin. It was making her blood sluggish, her heartbeat stutter.
Her body ached with unmet want; her cunt throbbed and her body shivered, and she was so horribly, deeply unsatisfied.
Le’garde started to snore.
She sat up. She was still dizzy with hunger and even dizzier from her unaddressed arousal, and it was that perfect dazed concoction that made her reckless enough to get to her feet, stumbling to the ladder leaned up against one of the crumbling walls. She climbed it to the rooftop, feeling Le’garde's cum starting to leak down her thighs as she did.
She had no bottoms on, but it was no colder out in the open than it is down in the hut. And she was probably safe from the monsters this high up. At least for a little bit.
She settled herself onto the edge of the hut’s flattened roof, her legs dangling down over the edge. She gazed out onto the miserable, dreary landscape down below, dilapidated and crumbling from age and neglect. Gold stone faded to grey without the sun, with strange plant-life she’d never seen before on the surface overtaking what was left of the roads and walls.
She’d never felt so far away from home; the home she had abandoned to follow a man she’d convinced herself would change the world. A man who she’d thought would love her.
Her hand wandered between her legs, pressing gently against her clit. She could feel her body light up immediately, could feel her heartbeat start to pick up again and her skin start to warm, pumping life back into her chilled body. She circled it with her fingers; slowly, gently, steadily.
Just like Ragnvaldr had.
Fuck.
She’d been trying not to, but she couldn’t help it, could she? The entire time Le’garde had been fucking her, she’d been thinking of him instead. For all of Le’garde’s rough and clumsy fingerwork, she had been thinking of Ragnvaldr’s warm and gentle hands, pinching her nipples and stroking her thighs and slowly, carefully easing her open. For all of Le’garde’s erratic thrusting, she had been aching for Ragnvaldr’s cock filling her to the point she thought she might burst, pummeling her cervix and leaving her breathless. For all of Le’garde’s eerie silence, she had been pining for Ragnvaldr’s deep and melodic voice whispering praises in her ear, his rumbling chuckle reverberating through his chest when she was getting particularly feisty or over-eager.
Ragnvaldr had felt so kind, and so safe. He had worried about her, even when it annoyed her. He had always paused to see her face, to gauge her reaction. He had been looking at her. Not past her; not beyond her.
She remembered what he had said to her the first time, as clearly as if she’d heard it only a moment ago.
“In Oldegård, there is no greater pleasure to a man than to see a woman being pleasured herself.”
Her fingers continued to move as if of their own accord, stroking herself as she took a shuddering breath, feeling her face grow hot and feeling her eyes start to burn with unshed tears.
She’d killed him.
After all this time, she’d finally gotten what she'd always wanted – what she’d dream of for so long. She should have been happy — she should have been ecstatic.
If she’d never met him — if she’d never asked him that stupid question, if she’d never let him take her virginity — perhaps she would be. He had ruined her. Ruined her perfect dream, shattered her image of the man that she loved.
She had done this all for Le’garde, and all she could think of in the aftermath was him.
And how he was dead.
How she had killed him.