Open Lost Night

[Nathaniel Ankah]

They had won, it seemed, but victory came with it's own brand of uncertainty. The exhilaration and strange pride Nate felt at seeing his woman - and gods, was he already considering her that? - banish her fears with a gleaming blade seemed to vanish when he ran to her and she collapsed into his arms.

Before, when they had embraced and ground against each other in alleys and darkened nooks, there had been nothing but barely-held lust. The desperate need to shed clothes and inhibitions and slake their desires in each other.

But much had changed, of course. The two of them sat on his cot, holding each other up, exhausted and spent. Then she looked at him, and said those words without a shade of bravado. Such a simple little expression: we say it a thousand times a week, but we rarely know what it means.

My thanks to you.

I give something of mine, to you, because you did service by me. Nate's breathing came in shallow draughts, as if he didn't want to break the moment. Here, in this place, he knew how fragile they were. He was dreaming: this wasn't real, and perhaps she...

No. She couldn't be a construct of his mind. But she was so ideal to him, so perfect, even in her handful of weaknesses...

"Tinnok..."

He whispered the word like a prayer, and smiled. In the doing of it the midnight room in the Sunset Quarter seemed to brighten. She could see the house as it was now. The sleeping, furry mountain of Jorka curled up in one corner, tail wagging whenever one of them glanced over. The neatly-stocked kitchen and scrubbed dining room, for as poor as they were, Kay would rather die than present company with dirty dishes.

His fiddle, pased onto him by the one he loved as a mother, a devilish device he had yet to master and still tried to, every night.

"I could never have made that up," he said to her, stroking her smooth cheek, marveling at the faint scales under them instead of being repelled, as she had perhaps feared, "I'm just not that bright."

He kissed her. It was a gentle thing; a pressing of lips to lips that demanded nothing, asked only the chance to taste and be connected to another. His hands stayed for a moment... and then they were sliding over her, disrobing her gently, slow enough that if she wished for him to stop, she could.

The old, brawling, whoring, gutter-fighting part of Nate wanted to see her as spoils of triumph. His reward for services due. But Nathaniel hushed it like a child, and lowered the both of them to the blanket.

They might have only this one night; this one glimpse into the fantastical, where the two of them had wandered and by the grace of Nysel (or just one of his cruel whims) had found each other.

He wanted to make that more than just a fuck.

She was worth more.

[Tinnok]

Yup :

Her fingers gripped his arms, gently, but digging into the scarred flesh enough to be sure it was there. The night had changed again so drastically. She had been so high on the violence, and him, so suave and confident. So caught up in everything that nothing wrong had occurred to her about how swiftly the two of them became entwined, her body craving his. She felt that need still, but it had been diverted like a stream down another pathway. Wherever this place was, whatever time, she was here, not in the jungle, but in some wretched city that stank, yet out of all its filth, she had managed to find one man. One man who had also found her.

He whispered her name, and her body responded, sliding against his, leaning in for another kiss, taking her time with the motion, exploring the facets of his mouth. When she drew back a single word, escaped her lips in a soft sigh, “Nate…”

She felt him reaching, tugging at her clothes, slowly pulling them away from her body, and she slid her hands underneath his shirt, running them up a muscled chest, kissing him once more before tugging off the appendage, exposing the bare flesh in the faint light of the room. She allowed her loose cotton shirt to fall off her body, then slowly, regretfully pulled her hands away from his skin to slowly unwind the cotton strips that kept her breasts tight against her chest, another breath releasing as they came free, the tightness in her chest evaporating, and suddenly, a shyness that the man had not yet seen from the barbarian woman shining through.

Her head ducked down low, loose strands of wavy mahogany hair falling in front of her face, after all she was nearly a maiden, wasn’t used to having such focused and kind male attention on her body. She glanced up, however, when she felt his hands caressing her curves, his green eyes filled with something she had never experienced in all those hate filled years. It was too soon to call it…love, but there was a tenderness there that left her mouth partially agape, his fingers running across her scaled skin as if it was a treasure and not a torment.

She reached a hand up and cupped his face, thumb stroking his lips, her eyes closing, and she rested her forehead against his, simply breathing in time with him, hearing the beating of her heart increasing. She felt the pit of her stomach flutter with uncertainty, but she couldn’t help but enjoy every little moment here in this foreign place.

[Nathaniel Ankah]

OOC :

Well, since we're BENT on sappiness...

Nate couldn't remember the last time he'd had a woman not wanting payment; or just as bad, one who was dressed and out the door before his shot seed had cooled on her stomach. Love wasn't something he was used to, not in the romantic sense. The shaky camaraderie he had with his little crew wasn't even close to it. Only Kayleah, and the distant, forever idealized sacrifice his birth mother had shown him...

They were the only truly selfless acts he had known. After twenty years, he'd started to doubt if he was simply unworthy of it, or if it just didn't exist.

Those doubts evaporated like morning dew when he felt Tinnok's hands on him. Fingertips that could gouge out eyes were now tracing over the musculature of his torso, over long-healed scars and packs of hard-won muscle. The sight of her bare before him was enough to make his hands still as if before an idol.

Nate was not blind. He could see the trepidation on her face, the slight coloring as she was exposed to him. Had she truly never been touched like this? Was her life as shorn of adoration as his had been?

He felt a swell of blinding, stupid pity for her. It simply wasn't fair. Nate had seen his share of street demons, cutthroat whores and thugs of every race and gender who'd gut you for your boots and feign any emotion to find just the right spot to slide a knife into your heart.

He saw none of that on that smooth, shapely face. He barely even saw the ferocious warrior that had sent men flying and picked off others with a bow like she was at a practice range.

He saw a girl with her forehead pressed to his, cool and soft, her breath mingling with his own.

"You're..."

Beautiful. Wondrous. Worthy of adoration and worship. Cute. Pretty. Gorgeous. Perfect. They all seemed so base and shallow. Just the fact that she was allowing him to see her like this, without her guard up... that told him far more than a poet's tome could have bought to mind.

He kissed her again, holding back the strain building in his loins. No-no-no, he would not be rushing this. He lay on his side next to her, not wanting the weight of his body pressing down and crushing her. But he surged to her side as he kissed her that time, one hand gently catching under her knee and laying her leg over his hip, pressing himself to her.

Just to know it was there... when she was ready.

The swell of her breasts was a warmth like a torch on his chest. The hair there tickled and prickled them and he gasped slightly as he felt her pert nipples brush against it. Tongues and lips massaged each other and ticks and chimes fell away into nothing.

Anything could wake them. A call from a monkey. A cry from a passing wagon. A snapped twig or a bark from Jorka. All just waiting there, circling possibilities to ruin this... this lost night.

But he would not rush this. He wanted this, and he needed it... all the more because he realized she needed it just as much.

His free hand moved down her flat stomach and undid the buttons to her breeches. He felt the heat from her as his hand slid inside and paused, eyes locking with hers.

He felt the stupid urge to ask permission, as if the distance they had gone already were not proof enough. Then their lips were together again and the whirl from before seemed to return, only deeper, stronger. Cleaner, almost.

Nate felt strong, tapered hands fumble with his own breeches, slide them down and he was released, hard and pulsing so close to the shaved triangle between her legs. He cupped her ass and pulled her closer to him... then gasped against her mouth as they came together.

"Thank you."

So stupid. So sappy and romantic and gods, he could hear his cronies jeering now... if he had them anymore, which thank fuck he didn't. He caught her eyes again. The hard stare he met the world with was not to be found: instead was a man who felt humbled by a woman he wanted, that he already felt an eel of true affection for, and the knowledge that she wanted him just as much.

Nate's hips rode into hers and his hands gripped tighter reflexively. Her back arched and she said something in a language he couldn't follow, but by then his greedy lips had gone to her neck, determined to taste as much of her as he could get before the dawn banished them both.

[Tinnok]

She would wake up. She would wake up and this would all be a haze, fading into the pre-daylight hours, her body already sheeted with sweat, yellow eyes facing another day as a witch in untamable wilds. She wouldn’t regret this, as she wouldn’t regret the waking. He began to speak, and her lips turned upward, understanding why he couldn’t finish. Somehow, in the impossibly long, yet indeterminably short moments of the subconscious mind, floating Nysel’s realm, neither of them needed words. She couldn’t understand why and how this moment had come, and how such a man existed. He could handle himself in a fight, yet now she could barely imagining him swatting a fly around his head, so gentle were his rough fingers on her form.

He was determined to be gentle, yet she pulled him atop of her, liking the feel of his weight, enjoying the view up into his eyes, which swam with emotions mirroring her own. There were fleeting memories, once of a boy when she was young, an oh so cruel boy. Then of the Dhani that had taken her for the first time, using his wiles and…magic to manipulate her into his grasp, her own mind willing to capture her desires, and then of course was the Eagle, who had flown away, never to return.

Her breath slid out of her throat in an expression so relieved. He was a barbarian, human. He held none of the taint of the races of Falyndar, cared not for what she was, saw her eyes…her skin as something wonderful, and he was everything that she had ever sought, simply an individual who saw beyond that.

Tinnok’s neck craned, her lips trailing kisses from his mouth down to his neck, pulling on the thin membrane at the nape of his neck, running her tongue along his collar bone, savoring the cool sensation and taste of his skin. She felt him shiver, saw the look in his eyes. This act that they were doing was not new to him, that much was clear from his behavior in the bar, but this…what they were doing now? That was. As if to confirm her words his mouth, brushing so intimately against hers uttered her own words back at her, everything she had felt coming back at her, washing over her and making her press more tightly against him.

And then he pulled up her leg, pressed himself against to, and then within her, the universe seeming to align in an instant. She gasped, the heat of their bodies, building over the course of the strangest of nights culminating in this act. “Goddess above.” She growled soft in Myrian. Her fingers trailed down his back longingly, digging harmlessly into the flesh as her hips moved in time with his.

His kisses tickled her skin, and a giggle escaped her throat unbidden. If she had cared to move her hands she would have clapped them over her mouth, but she heard him growl in approval, which changed to a groan as she adjusted her body beneath him, causing her to gasp again and dig harder into his back as he pressed even further into her, making her shudder.

She put a hand on either side of his waist, the leg he had previously raised working as leverage to flip him onto his back, Tinnok sitting atop of him, lavishing in the feeling of their bodies joined as one. Her hands slid down his chest, settling on a tight grip of his hips, sliding up along his length and then settling down again, letting out a soft moan as she forced it deeper within her, hips rocking gently back and forth against his.

Now it was her that was tempted to speak. Their eyes stared unblinkingly into one another’s, her body rising and falling rhythmically upon his. Her lips parted, the sound wet, a chime passing as she tried to find the perfect thing to say to him there. That he was handsome, kind, so unbelievably tender? Her sins always seemed to consume her mind, but here in this moment she was free from all of them, and in utter ecstasy.

In the end she leaned backwards, arching turning her face upwards and tightening around him, muscles quivering, breathing coming in needy gasps, fingers digging into his sides as she bucked atop him.

[Nathaniel Ankah]

Nate was hardly going to complain about her taking charge: in fact, he couldn't have been more aroused. Most times when a woman did that to him, it was because he was too drunk to get on top or they just wanted to finish him quickly so they could wipe themselves off and love to the next Moe.

But not her. Not even close. She was drawing out every ounce of pleasure as she rode him; letting her wet, hot slickness please every inch of his length as her tanned, tones body rocked back and forth. Every time she rolled forward and impaled herself deeper, Nate's questing hands seemed to shudder with his breath, lungs emptied just by the sight of her

Hair untamed and flung around her neck in a shining halo. Perfect pounds of flesh on her chest undulating gently as she moved. The feel of her hands on his hips, digging into his sides and spurring him on, until finally she reared back and tightened around him, little strangled sounds escaping her lips as she quivered, convulsed, came...

"Gods... if that was counterfeit... then you are quite the forger, darlin'."

He barked out a ragged laugh and before she could slap at him indignantly, he grabbed her waist and rolled them both over until he was atop her, legs wrapped around him, still pulsing inside her wetness. His cockiness seemed to feed the feral urge to roll her onto her hands and needs and take her like a lion (or would tiger be more apt?), pounding out his mad heat for her until...

No. Not that way. Not this time.

Instead Nate kissed her deeply, possessivdly, choking off her witty retort as he crushed her breasts to his chest before sliding out of her. He roll her onto her side and spooned behind her, impressed and grateful she was liyhe enough to still be able to look at him if she twisted round a little.

Which was the reason he would not take her in that fashion. The real reason:

He wanted to see her face. Her wonderful, merciless, amused and sorrowful eyes.

Nate kissed her again and slid into her from behind, marveling at the ease of it. She gasped and stiffened and gods, that stoked the fires true enough. She may have been satisfied (at least once), but he was far from. He mixed for a tick that even after a hundred nights, a thousand, he might not be.

He crashed and ebbed against her, tireless and taxed all at once. She captured his lips again and they kissed, sloppy and breathless and hungry, insatiable for each other. As he felt his stones begin to tremble, Nate reached around to her front and caressed her wrtness with his fingers, adding to what he was already doing to her, his other arm wrapped around her breasts from behind, clutching one, crushing her to him as he

"I will find you."

The words were part plea, part vow, rank with desperation and choked with the stupid passion of those in coitus.

Nate would have brained the man that doubted them.

"I... We will meet again. This place... or the waking-"

And with that he plateaued and growled out his climax, no more words left in him save the insensible. His great body shook against her back and he bowed his head so his forehead was pressed to hers again, tasting their mingled sweat on her swollen lips as he stole one more kiss... and became a boneles, panting mass.

"Woman... you ruin me..."

He didn't bother trying to block her. Petch it, he probably couldn't have managed it anyway...

[Tinnok]

She didn’t know much of the ways of sex, so little experience, only daydreams and ideas of it. So when he turned her around, body fitting tightly against hers, thick arms wrapping around her body in the most pleasurable of embraces, she relaxed into his grip, letting him take the lead. Her neck twisted, not liking the idea of losing sight of him, and she saw the same desire dripping out of his gaze as their mouths met again, roughly claiming each other with gasping breaths.

She shivered and convulsed as he growled, feeling them simultaneously reach a peak of utter exultation. His words, his promise rang in her mind, and she shifted, separating from him with a low, pleasurable noise before shifting her body front wise against his, fingers trailing down his arms and face.

In the growing pre-dawn light of Falyndar, a small herd of Nandhai was grazing lazily beneath the tree in which Tinnok slept. Her head rolled sideways on a branch and she felt her eyes twitch, sensing the lightening of the world.

Sensing her time here with him…was drawing to a close. “Anyone else and I’d take your words for lies.” She smiled, but that sadness was in her gaze again. She would make no promises she didn’t know she couldn’t keep. Her arms wrapped around his neck, her nose touching his, twisting her head to snatch one last kiss.

“I’ll keep an eye out for you male.” And that was the last of the innocent, demure woman, a veil fell over her eyes, preparing her for the pain of waking, the loss of whatever this was. She was no soft woman to fall into a man’s arms in one single night, not where she was going.

“Goodbye Nate.”

She shot upwards in her perch in the treetops of Falyndar. It was still dark, and her movements disturbed a young Nandhai who glanced up into the foliage, then snorted as it senses the witch was no danger. Tinnok smiled down at the front heavy creatures, rubbing her forehead, the images of everything that had happened in another world while she slept, fading away like the morning mist. She started to rise, part of her hesitating, her mind grasping at something. She paused, part ways onto a branch, clinging like a monkey, but all she could see were two strange green eyes staring back at her.

“Huh.” She said quietly to herself, then she began her descent.

[Nathaniel Ankah]

He grinned at her approving words, but then he felt all reality tremble, as if a god had fallen against their queer little house. His hackles went up and his green eyes roved around uncertainly, trying to pinpoint what

Then he saw the cool, calm look come over her eyes. The maiden was gone, and there lay the warrior. Nate realized what she was doing, what she was readying for.

All dreams must end.

Nathaniel's face crumpled like a brokenhearted child's, and he felt much the same. It was so... unfair. He wanted her to stay; wanted them both to stay here, where it was safe and warm and the cold, uncaring world couldn't harm them more than it had. What sort of god was Nysel to so bless him and then cruelly steal this golden time?

Nate... just listen to yourself.

Her strength became his. That world-weary edge to her eyes was what he needed, reminding him that the world of dream and waking had to be separate. Too much would be lost, muddled, rendered useless and given egregious power if that were not the case. It was how life had to be, not as he wanted it.

Nate managed a lopsided grin when she said she would keep her eyes open. The open, guileless green pools he bore froze, hardened, became the icy, careful stare he wore in the world. But when she kissed him that last time, he leaned into it and he savored every tick.

She reminded him they were not insipid children or tragic lovers from some play. They were fighters, and every day was another bout. They could steal their moments of peace and softness, but it wasn't who they were.

Nate let his hands fall from her as the room began to him around him, the dream of Jorka waking suddenly out of the corner of his eyes. If he didn't let go now... he never would.

"Stay alive, Tiger," he said with a grin, using one of the few things he'd learned about the Far Jungle, "We're far from"

Then she was gone in a broken blink and Jorka barked from the middle of his skull

Nothing. No transition, not to the rational mind, at least. But time enough for beauty and bloodlust and victory and terror and the seed of something precious beyond the jewels of River fall to be planted in his sleeping mind, the scrubbed from the one that woke

"Arght... ariiiight, I said, fuck's sake...!"

"Mind yer language, lad," a voice said to his side, and his bleary eyes found Kay at her table, swift fingers mending a garish dress, "Not her fault you're late waking."

Seventy pounds of insistent pitbull launched herself onto his chest, just to cram the point home. Nate grunted and laughed as he pushed her slobbering face away, swinging upright and stretching...

Seeing the light from the window. Smelling the stink, hearing the calls and yells and running, guilty feet. Sunberth, Bloody Sunberth...

So Kay was rightly surprised when her decidedly morning-unfriendly surrogate son hied over to her and pressed a sloppy kiss to her cheek, gaining a surprised laugh.

"Heavens! Aren't we in fine fettle today...?"

"I tell ya, Kay," Nate said from the kitchen, industriously rustling up some breakfast, a sharp, mysterious energy in his movements, "I haven't slept that well in seasons. Years, maybe!"

"Oh?" She said, raising an eyebrow and a salacious smirk ad he sat at the table. "Who was she?"

Nate wracked his brain, xredged his memory, put out flyers in his subconscious and after all that... shrugged.

"No clue, love, but bloody hells... she was worth forgetting."

Kay rolled her eyes and something whined next to him. Nate looked down with hisouth full of buttered roll and found a pitiful pair of brown eyes gazing pleadingly at him.

"But I bet she woulda' loved you, baby girl."

He tossed her the other half with a laugh.