Warning: this story handles themes of sexual violence and dubious consent.
A ship of wood with sails of glass cuts across the night sky on a rail of rainbow light, pursued without cease by a gyre of naked flame. Its crew is valiant but inconsequential. One by one, they succumb to the heat. All aboard are reduced to ash, but the ship goes on.
This is the only way their story could end.
You wake to the sound of singing. Mona is there, by the window. Her presence is familiar, but the song is strange. You do not understand its lyrics. Was there another language spoken in the village? Or is it simply nonsense? Either way, it sounds sad. It is a song of parting.
As usual, she isn't wearing nearly enough. The morning sunlight cuts through her thin shift like it isn't even there, exposing her full breasts and soft belly and stopping only just short of that sunken sanctuary that barely hides between her legs. You watched her grow riper with plenty enough passing seasons, but no matter her years, she is forbidden for you to taste. She is your foster kin, by the goddess. You shouldn't know the color of the mossy patch that gathers along her delta, and yet you do. And yet you do.
How can she torture you like this? You know that she knows that you can see her everything. You've seen it in her sideways glances. She knows your responsibilities to the community. Does she think that somehow makes you immune to her charms? Nothing could be further for the truth. It is taboo alone that stays your hand from reaching out to touch her, even if it does not stay your cock from stirring beneath your blankets. Let her notice. Perhaps that will teach her to keep her secret places dearer. Or perhaps—you allow the impure thought to penetrate your wavering resolve—that will impel her to make the first move.
"You were crying out in your sleep, again," she says. "I thought a lullaby might calm your rest."
"Did it work?" you ask.
"No," she laughs. "It merely woke you. But that is as it must be. The morning sun kisses the mountains and the alderman has sent for you."
"Who it will be, today?" you mutter.
Mona's air of alluring calm is temporarily disturbed. She quickly—but not quickly enough to escape your notice—hides a frown. Her body is silhouetted by the light coming through the window, giving her an ominous cast as she turns fully towards you.
"You don't have to keep doing this," she insists. "We can find another way. You did nothing to deserve this toil and torture."
You shake your head. That isn't true and she knows it. All orphans must, upon their adulthood, find a role of purpose within the village, or else they are cast out. The village is small and its largesse is reserved for those who earn it (or those who are born to it, for this edict does not apply to the village's own sons and daughters).
"We could leave," Mona offers.
"Don't say that," you snap. "You have a good place at the stables. They treat you kindly. Someday soon you will marry, the young suitors would like nothing more, and it will be as though you are really one of them, wanting for nothing. I won't take that away from you."
She looks at you, mouth moving, but she can't seem to find her voice.
You aren't entirely an idiot about these things. You know how she feels about you. She wouldn't show herself to you as she does if she didn't. But you can't be that for her. Not now and probably not ever. That would make you outcasts and pariahs both. If the alderman had his way, they'd hunt you down and feed you to his pigs. No, you conclude, this is what's best for both of you. This is how it must be.
"Let me go," you say, as softly as those words can be said.
With a choking, exasperated sigh, Mona whirls away, banging down the hall to her own room in the halfway house. That could have gone worse.
You dress yourself simply, as suits your day to come, and head out into the village center, eschewing breakfast. There will be time to eat after, you hope, and some things are better endured on an empty stomach. Besides, if you wait too much longer, the other denizens will be up and about, and you would prefer to avoid their stares. Not all of them know what duties you perform in the service of the alderman, but enough of them do—and many have experienced your employ first-hand. You're not one of them, no matter how well you secure your room and board, and they won't let you forget it. Better to avoid them entirely.
The alderman's estate sits on the largest plot of land in the village, situated at the crown of the tallest hill. It is attended by too many hands and its appointments border on opulent, but none of his electors would dare say so. Were they to limit his powers, they would cut off their own path to a life of excess, however unlikely they are to achieve that ill-fitting dream.
You are never summoned to the alderman's estate. He has made a point of it. You go instead to the village hall, where he and his secretary and the other members of the village council keep their offices. That is another reason you move so quickly: only the alderman goes to the office this early. You would think he'd want to linger longer in that estate of his, but perhaps he feels there is power in casually disregarding those things of his which others so deeply covet.
It is how he treats his wife. Why wouldn't he treat his house the same way?
You slip through the heavy double doors and cut across the meeting room, relieved to find that there are no petitioners in attendance, although contrary to expectation, fully three of council chambers occupancy lamps are lit. The alderman and his secretary are here, yes, but so is Councilperson Farr. It's strange, but no point of real concern. You and Farr have never exchanged more than three words in all your years in the village, a fact that only seems unusual when you consider that they, too, are an orphan, hailing from some distant and war-torn foreign land. They earned their place, however. It is little surprise that they do not want to be seen rubbing elbows with one who has not yet done the same.
The alderman answers after three knocks.
"Enter," he drones.
You do so.
The alderman's chamber is just as small and sparse as its occupant, though there is something about the place that leaves no doubt in anyone's mind that he is the one who is in charge of this place. Perhaps it is the fact that every surface is oiled and clean of even a hint of dust. Perhaps it is the fact that the tapestry that hangs behind his chair is subtle in composition, but woven wholly of spun gold and silver threads. Perhaps it is the fact that of all the rooms in the village hall, his is the only one with a lock on the door.
"You are needed at Two Crows Cottage," says the alderman, without preamble.
You reference your mental map of the village. Two Crows is Sprat and Spleen. That doesn't bode well.
"Reward or redress?" you ask.
"Does it matter?" he chirps.
Damn him, he knows that it does. The villagers are so much less cruel when you're their reward.
"They have registered a complaint," he confirms, when you do not leave.
So that's it, then. You were right to have a bad feeling about this one. No use fretting further over what can't be avoided.
"I will see that your will is done," you say with a small bow.
"Pay a visit to Miss Fogg on your way out," he adds, as you back away. "You are due an inspection."
You don't give the alderman the satisfaction of seeing the look on your face before the door has closed in front of you. This isn't much of a wrinkle. The alderman's secretary's chambers are right next-door and she never delays you for long. With luck, you can be on your way and still have time to recover from Sprat and Spleen before supper. You're going to make Mona's favorite honeyed vegetables, tonight. You owe her at least that much.
Miss Fogg's chambers are, if anything, more severe than the alderman's. The chamber is smaller by half, but every piece of furniture is painted black—as if to match her painted black lips and her painted black eyebrows—which lends it all a feeling of unearned expanse. She is smugly silent as you take your place in front of her desk, her pale cleavage spilling out of her too-tight blouse in the way it always does, her long salt-and-pepper hair pulled back in a severe bun.
"Well," she huffs, "get on with it."
You unbuckle your trousers, letting them fall to the carpet around your ankles. That might be enough, but your tunic hangs almost down to your knees, so you unbutton it at the throat and pull it up and over your head, leaving you naked except for your boots.
She eyes you, pink tongue playing across her black lips, then she nods for you to carry on.
You spit into your palm and take your own cock by the shaft, rubbing from head to base as you angle it towards her in presentation. More lubrication would be nice, but as much as you want this to be over with quickly, you know you have to put on a show or else she'll demand an encore. You keep your eyes trained on her as you stroke yourself, eliciting a gravelly chortle from her when you theatrically bite your bottom lip, as if you just can't help yourself.
Miss Fogg slides her hand down the front of her blouse, popping loose its fasteners and letting her jugs spill out unhindered. In spite of your circumstances, you can't claim to find the sight at all unpleasant, for they are heavy with age and use but still plump and rosy with a wanton desire for life and pleasure. You quicken all the more as she slips a hand into her skirt, dipping just beneath your line of sight, and begins to audibly rub her own slit.
"Where would you like it?" you inquire.
"On the desk will do," she instructs. "I will thank you not to spill any on the carpet, as we've just had them cleaned. But surely you wouldn't let yourself come before me? I think that would require some remedial attention."
Her eyes flick to the not-even-thinly-veiled spanking bench, upholstered in pitch black leather to match the rest of her office, that perches against the nearest wall, a weathered paddle hanging on a hook beside it.
"I wouldn't dream of it, Miss Fogg," you assure her. "As much as I would appreciate your instruction, had I the time, I have other duties to attend to."
She wrinkles her button nose at this. It is no secret what she thinks of Sprat and Spleen and their all-too-frequent complaints to the alderman. Were it not for their prize steers, they would hold much less influence, but as it is they provide one of the village's principle exports. It is in no one's interest to let their tempers sour overlong.
In a small act of mercy, she shimmies out of her skirt and puts her heels up on her desk, spreading her legs wide and allowing her fingers unfettered access. After a moment's further consideration, she draws a thick wooden implement from her first drawer—it is carved to look like a rather attractive and particularly knobby carrot, but that does little to obscure its true purpose—and slides it in between her cunt-lips with a satisfied sigh.
While this act of egregious self-pleasure does little to diminish your arousal, it does much to hasten hers. If you are careful about it, it won't be hard to hold yourself back just long enough. You focus your attention on your shaft, avoiding your head except for little touches, keeping yourself on the brink but holding back just shy of the imminent drop.
There is no question when or whether Miss Fogg's climax hits. She is never quiet, but this time less so than most. You consider that the alderman may be listening through the thin walls. Let him hear.
You take two steps forward, shortening the distance between you and your target, and flick your fingers quickly over your throbbing head. Two seconds later, four thick ropes of your seed fly forth, decorating Miss Fogg's desk with a weblike pattern of semi-translucent goo.
The secretary scoops up one line with the fingers that were so recently frigging her own clit and puts them in her mouth.
"Mm," she groans. "You never disappoint, do you."
It's hard to say whether that's a compliment, coming from her. Failure is an opportunity for correction and Miss Fogg loves to correct. You decide it's best not to say anything at all and simply stand there, chest heaving, collecting the last drips from your cock before they can fall to the carpet below and wiping them off on the desk.
"Very well," she sighs. "You pass inspection. You may go."
You reach for your trousers and she tuts.
"I said you could go, not that you could dress," she chides. "Clothe yourself elsewhere. I want to watch that bare young ass as it walks away."
It's harder not to say anything, this time, but you manage. You gather your tunic and trousers, stepping out of your boots in the process so that you don't have to make a clumsy attempt to put your trousers on over them, and head for the door. Obligingly, defiantly, you give her a little wiggle as you step outside.
The meeting hall is not as empty now as it was when you first arrived. A young couple—a farmer and his bride-to-be—sit on a bench across the way. He looks scandalized by your appearance, while she looks intrigued, her eyes scanning your delta without a trace of propriety. The farmer will be a lucky man if he can keep her satisfied, you think.
More curiously, Councilperson Farr stands in their doorway, staring across at you. They aren't here for the farmer, or else they would already be in their chambers. They seem to be here just to have a look at you. How bizarre.
You pull on your trousers and boots a little more quickly than you normally would in front of an audience and at last pull your tunic up and over your head. By the time you're dressed, Farr is gone, door shut, lamp dark, so you have no opportunity to investigate further.
The farmer has begun to lecture his second-guessing betrothed on the dangers of ignominy, so you sensibly avoid striking up a conversation (however much the devil on your shoulder wants you unseat that already-wobbling top) and make a beeline for the exit.
It is a clear day, full of bright sun, which seems incongruous with the dark acts you are about to commit, but so it has ever been. If there's one good thing about the route to Two Crows Cottage, it's that it takes you by the creek, so you take a moment to go down to the bank and splash some water on your face. There's no sense in cleaning yourself. It won't make a difference for what's about to happen. But the water feels refreshing on your skin and makes you feel, just for a moment, a little more human than you did before.
You stare at your reflection in the stream. It hardly feels like you. When the sun reflects off the ripples of the stream in just such a way that it blinds you in a dazzling white flash, it is almost a relief. But then your sight does not return in the moment after. You are transported in a dizzying jumble of dislocated locomotion and when you begin to see again, you understand intuitively that your vision is not your own, but borrowed from another.
Three entities wreathed in flame stand at the edge of the universe, looking in. Perhaps because it is the only way your mortal mind can comprehend them, each of them closely resembles Mona. The first appears how you imagine she will look a few years in the future. The second appears how you remember her looking a few years in the past. The third appears just as she does now, only cloaked in fire with eyes that burn like stars. Each of them is naked, but you have not the authority to look away, so you drink in the sight of them with the shamelessness of the bound.
"Our cosmos craves chaos," says the eldest entity. "Entropy is its most natural conclusion. But lo, I sense a pattern. It repeats across the realms, through time and wind, through twilight and sky, through the very wild. It is always different, but it is always the same."
"Tell us, sister," says the youngest entity. "Tell us, please. What is this pattern? What must we do?"
"A Hero, a Princess, a King," says the eldest. "They rise apart and fall together, again and again and again. Apart, they hold such power that all but we must weep. Together, they could pull down the stars themselves. This recursion cannot be allowed, or all will soon be lost."
"What must be do?" repeats the youngest. "What must we do?"
"You will do nothing," says the eldest. "I will go. I will seek them. I will destroy them. Their malignant shape will threaten chaos no more."
The middle entity says nothing all the while, but then she turns and looks at you.
You tumble, turning, fleeing fire and seeking water. Your face is a whisker's breadth from the surface of the creek when a firm hand clasps your shoulder and your eyes again behold the world.
"Milkweed, are you all right?" asks Mona. The real Mona. Your Mona.
You blink at the sky. It felt like an age, like a journey across all known history, but it hasn't been more than a few minutes, maybe less. Just long enough for Mona to pass by on her way to the stable and find you, staring at the eddies like one mad. There is a worried look in her eye that seems to have ushered out all this morning's hurt feelings. You really owe her those honeyed vegetables, now.
"Sorry," you mumble. "Yes, I think. I'm okay. I must have drifted off, there. A daydream, nothing more."
She doesn't look like she believes you, but she knows you well enough not to press. You can be stubborn as a mule when your guard is up, and she can see that it is.
"Where are you headed?" she asks. "We can walk together, if you'd like."
After whatever just happened, that sounds like the best thing in the world, but you can't compromise her safety like that. There is no hiding from the village that the two of you are close—you have been inseparable since you were children—but the less they associate her with the work that you do, the less likely that anyone will make designs on her future. You want her to have a normal life, someday, even if you've long given up on the same.
"Better that we not," you say. "I'm on my way to Two Crows Cottage. You don't want to go near there if you can help it."
Mona grimaces. Miss Fogg is not the only one with an axe to grind against those two: the rivalry between the village horsemen and steersmen is as long and bitter as it is bloody, and Mona by her vocation has steadfastly picked a side.
"Promise me you'll be careful," she demands.
You can't do that. She knows you can't do that. But you give her a reassuring smile, just the same—not quite a lie, but close enough to make your heart hurt.
"I'll see you tonight," you tell her. "It's my turn to cook dinner."
She doesn't start crying, not quite, but she turns away too quickly and walks at double pace until she passes out of view. You dare not close your eyes as she goes. Some piece of you is afraid that you will never see her again. It isn't rational, but it seems inevitable just the same.
The front door of Two Crows Cottage is bone white, and you have no more than set your fingers upon the ring of the iron bull that forms its knocker when it swings inward. Sprat is framed there, uncomfortably tall and disconcertingly thin—his skeleton strains against his skin where they meet at the shoulder and elbow—and naked except for a blood-spattered apron. He has been cutting meat.
He grunts and goes back inside, flashing you his whole pale backside. He does not invite you to follow, but why would he when there is no doubt of your obligation. You step across the threshold and close the door behind you, suppressing a shudder as you cut yourself off from the daylight. They keep it dark in here, the better to hide the stains.
"My brother is in the parlor," says Sprat. "I will join you soon."
You nod dutifully and your paths diverge, him to the abattoir, you to a place that has seen no less of its share of spilled blood. Not everyone who enters here shares the alderman's aegis and even that only extends so far—he has been known to overlook many a scratch and bruise upon his wares.
Spleen, in the parlor, has already discarded his apron and sits fully naked in a wide leather chair, his rolls pouring over his body such that, were his hands not upon it, you could almost miss the turgid length of his over-fat cock. For all your mental preparation, you gulp at the sight of him. He has been waiting for you and that means you will not have time to prepare.
"Come closer, boy," Spleen growls, "and turn around."
You do as you are told.
In the early days of your service to the village, you were not adept at such obedience, but days spent chained in the cave behind the waterfall where the brackish water burned had cured you of ignorance. You were here to represent the village's remorse, the remedy to a complaint deemed valid by alderman and council both. To shirk from your responsibilities would reflect poorly on the dignity of those astute bodies and one who damages the village's reputation will quickly be sacrificed to restore what has been lost.
Spleen roughly pushes up the back of your tunic and drags your trousers down around your knees. If there is one mercy, it is that his cock leaks arousal like a sieve, so you are not entirely un-lubricated as he presses up against your asshole. It still isn't enough.
You grit your teeth as he splits you open, stretching your ass to fit around his bulbous cock-head with no more courtesy than he would afford a veal-calf and with all the might of a knocker's hammer. What more are you to him than meat? Cultivated meat, served on a silver platter, but meat just the same. He pulls out of you, leaving you vacuously empty for a few strangled heartbeats before he pushes back in again, as if merely to savor the experience of forced entry for a second time. This time he does not stop, pulling you halfway down his shaft, going as far as he can until your passage grows too tight for even him to bludgeon his way through without patience and cooperation.
His arm wraps around your stomach, the bulk of him squelching around you as he presses close, and he plucks your exposed cock from between your legs with his thick fingers. Could you remember the taste of shame, you would be embarrassed at how hard you are, already, such that only a few quick tugs gets you the rest of the way there. Spleen is a beast, but he is a clever beast. He knows you relax when someone jacks you off. You sink gradually further down his implement as he strokes you, the tension building in your delta with every inch, until you climax, seed spilling out onto the floor—another stain, but at least it is not blood—and find yourself fully impaled upon him.
"There we go," Spleen rumbles. "My turn."
He is not gentle, but he never is. There is power behind all that weight and he muscles in and out of you, rutting and snorting like a wild boar, the great tusks of his thumbs kneading your chest, pulling on your nipples, stretching out your spine as he blows out your backside. You feel it in your stomach the first time he ejaculates within you, but you know that isn't the end of it. Once is never enough for him.
Sprat enters the parlor not long after that. Seeing your current state of occupation, he discards his apron and unceremoniously sticks the head of his cock—just as long and thin as the rest of him—between your lips. You part them, running your tongue over as much of him as you can manage as he shoves himself into your throat. If Spleen is the hammer, then Sprat is surely the poleaxe. They are equally deadly, they just make a different kind of mess.
"How many times?" asks Sprat, in-between jerky thrusts.
"Just once," grumbles Spleen, "Although—"
His hips buck and his cock quivers and you feel your insides go hot again. The bile rises so high in your throat that you fear that it will singe Sprat's drilling cock. Perhaps that was not fear, but hope, but you are not so naive as to count on a quick end to all this.
"—twice, now," Spleen concludes as he finishes.
Sprat reaches down and clamps his clammy fist around your cock. He likes to hold you when he gets off, as if you are a ward against some unknown fear. And truly, the taste of him as he explodes into your mouth—the bastard pulls back as far as your lips when he comes, ensuring that you taste every draught—is as vile as your worst nightmares. He does not pull his cock out of your mouth until he is certain that you have swallowed every drop.
Your sense of time grows hazy as your vision blurs and your hearing dulls. Spleen comes in your ass a third time, you think, judging by the queasy stirring in your guts, but you neither feel nor otherwise perceive the moment that it happens. Maybe that's a blessing. You don't notice when, but Sprat strips you of your boots and trousers and tunic, leaving you as bare as them, your rich brown body itself like a stain as it flails against Spleen's pallid expanse.
Awareness lurches to the fore, however, as Spleen pulls you hard against his chest with an insistence that might crush you were he not so soft. Your cock is in Sprat's mouth, you realize with some surprise and horror, and you are on the verge of climax, yourself. When it boils up, Sprat releases you, causing you to spurt your seed like a fountain all over your own stomach and thighs. As you heave with abrupt clarity, Sprat jerks himself to a quick finish, spraying down your delta with his foul leavings, leaving you absolutely slimy.
The mixture drips and pools around the place where Spleen's cock and your asshole are still joined, the latter messily oozing with at least three rounds already. Sprat dips his fingers in and rubs them against your stretched rim, massaging your northern edge.
That's when you realize what they're about to do to you. You try to protest, but Spleen covers your mouth. When you try to bite him, instead, he covers your nostrils, too. You consider fighting harder, but you realize with a sickening drop in your already upset stomach that you'd rather be awake for this than not. You can't protect yourself if you're unconscious. You can barely protect yourself as it is.
In a heinous perversion of consent, you nod, and Spleen lets you breathe again.
Sprat slaps his cock against his brother's, indicating that he is ready. Spleen slides as far out of you as he can without slipping out completely, leaving just the misshapen head inside, an anchor to keep you in line. Sprat nestles his own narrow head against your already overstuffed opening and pushes. You try not to scream. You fail. You feel Spleen grow harder inside of you. Sprat keeps going. With an awful squelching sound, you hear him crowd his way inside. In an act of terrifying fortune, your ass mostly feels numb, but although there is no obvious pain, the pressure is almost more than you can bear. Even without Spleen's hand over your face, you stop breathing.
And then Sprat starts to move and it knocks the wind out of you. Squeezed together inside of you like this, there isn't much room for either one of them to build up any real momentum, but what they can do is more than enough. They wriggle, fucking each other as much as or more than they're fucking you. Their cocks reciprocate inside their sheathes of flesh. Their hands travel across your body, across leg and arm and stomach and throat, passing each other by without ever quite meeting. Some isolated projection of your consciousness wonders if they would prefer that you not be there at all, but then they would lack for the shield that your ass provides to their true amorous intentions.
Truly this village makes monsters of you all—but some, you think, are worse than others.
Sprat comes first, but only just, and the combined vibrations of their two orgasms and the ensuing wave of their excretions is more than either of them can resist. They are flushed from your body and you are left hollow and cold and free. You know them well enough, damn them and the alderman, to know when they have hit their limit and this is it.
You slip out from between the pair, allowing Sprat to topple innocently into his brother's arms. With practiced agility, you snatch up your boots and trousers and tunic. You wait to put them on, however, needing to capitalize on their brief window of calm refraction before the tristesse turns them cruel. Crueler.
"The alderman is confident that this vessel will have provided adequate compensation to ameliorate the distress of your complaint," you recite. "We look forward to your continued cooperation in the mutual project of our township's success and progress."
Spleen grunts something that passes well enough for acknowledgement and you duck out of the parlor, leaving them to each other. You can feel their seed leaking out of you with every step, but to you do not stop or seek a washroom. You go on, navigating the corridors of the Cottage until you exit via the back-most door, where no one will be around to see you retch. You are glad that you skipped breakfast, but you still empty whatever was left in your stomach onto the dirt. Desperately, you hold in your bowels. The world spins. You fall.
"I cannot allow this to continue," says Mona. "The cost is too high."
Only it isn't Mona. This Mona is cloaked in fire with eyes that burn like stars. This Mona stands naked at the edge of the universe, looking in. This Mona is flanked by her younger sister, though her elder sister is nowhere to be seen.
"I do not understand," says the younger. "Our sister saves the universe for chaos. Surely that is worth any price."
"Our sister burns whole worlds in the name of preservation," says the first. "She slaughters billions to excise three. Look. This is their symbol."
She waves her hand and a shape forms in the space before them. Three golden triangles, arranged by their corners to form a larger triangle, leaving a fourth empty and inverted triangle at their center. She touches each of the golden triangles in turn and they emit sparks of ominous color, first green, then blue, then red.
"The Hero, the Princess, the King," the first intones. "The triangular recursion. But do you not see that there is a fourth? I name them Anti-Hero, warrior for peace."
She reaches for the central inverted triangle and rather than passing through, her fingers press against a transparent solid, like glass. It rings out like a bell, reverberating through the other three. She lays her whole hand upon the invisible triangle and her palm is burning hot upon your naked chest.
"Easy, Milk," coos a new voice. "You're safe, now. There's no one here to hurt you."
You blink. The vomit-splattered embankment behind Two Crows Cottage that surrounded you a moment ago has been replaced by a comely copper bathtub, one large enough that all but your head and neck are submerged in water that is still steaming hot. You are naked, as you were before, but now you are scrubbed clean from tip to toes. You are also not alone.
The alderman's wife sits on a simple wooden chair beside the tub, her cool white hand pressed against your forehead. She is barely older than you are, but whatever fire of youth she once had has long been snuffed out. He married her when she was still practically a child, made her bear him three sons, and then abandoned her—in practice, if not in name. She does not raise his children—he has a servant for that. She isn't even the head of his household—he has a servant for that, too. She is all but a prisoner of his design, trapped by duty and creed just as much as you are. Perhaps that's why you find her so entrancing.
"Hullo, Fermata," you say. "How, uh, how did I get here?"
Instead of answering, she leans in and places her lips on yours. Your eyes flutter closed as she leans in, tongue racing past your lips, full of repressed need and longing. She may have lost the fire of her youth, but in its place she kindled another kind of fire altogether, one very much to your liking.
You might claim that your affair with the alderman's wife started out as something pure, but that would be untrue. She found her way to you not long after you were conscripted into the alderman's service. You were someone he took from the world, just as he had taken her, so she took you from him and claimed you for herself. It is an act of revenge, not an act of love, but that suits the both of you perfectly well—and she's as good a training partner as you could hope for. You don't think you could've survived Sprat and Spleen if not for your many long afternoons spent under the tutelage of Fermata's strap right here in her secret cabin on the outskirts of the village.
She breaks the kiss and shoots you a devilish grin, though there's a touch of the melancholy at the corners of her eyes. It's always like this after an act of redress. She tries to remind you that there's such a thing as good touch in the world. It usually works.
"Lovely as that was, and lovely as you are," you drawl, thinking about snatching another kiss for good measure, "that doesn't answer my question. I was on the other side of the village. How did you get me here?"
"I didn't do it alone," Fermata titters. "I had help."
The hair on the back of your neck prickles and you leap to your feet, splashing an unconscionable volume of water onto the floor as you spin unsteadily around to face the room's unknown third occupant.
Councilperson Farr is there, seated on a swing that is generally reserved for marathon fucking. Their cowl, normally drawn so heavily that it shades their eyes from view, is down around their shoulders, revealing the curiously ageless countenance of one graced with such a dark complexion. You know that they are your elder, but you couldn't guess by how much. There is something strange and shy about the way they are looking at you, as if the cowl was there to hide them from you and not the other way around.
"Well met, Anti-Hero," they say in greeting.
Your nerves run cold. How could they know that phrase? It cannot be a coincidence.
"You're giving the Councilperson quite a show," remarks Fermata.
You look down at your unchecked nakedness. Farr is looking at you, too. Their eyes linger on your lower extremities for longer than you might expect from one so stately and mysterious.
"It's nothing they haven't seen before," you inform her. "In fact, it's nothing they haven't seen before just today. Why are you following me, Councilperson?"
"Farr will do," the Councilperson retorts. "I'm afraid my days with the Council are numbered, now that my purpose for lingering in this cursed village is at hand. And before you ask, my purpose is—as I believe you have surmised—you. I have brought you your sword."
Fermata looks up at you expectantly. You get the sense that Farr must have shared some portion of this revelation with her in advance, for what little it means to you.
"I cannot fathom your meaning," you say, dropping back down into the bath where it is at least warm, if a little less full than it was before. "My sword? What need do I have for a sword? I'm the village fuck-toy. That's about as far from a hero as you can be, anti or otherwise."
The alderman's wife reaches over and runs her fingers through your bedraggled curls. You think it is meant to be a comfort, but it just makes you feel small.
"I told you that you were waking him too soon," Farr grouses.
"You saw the way he was thrashing," Fermata counters. "I couldn't stand to see him that way. He is a troubled boy. Man. Person. You know what I mean."
She looks at you apologetically and awkwardly withdraws her hand.
"What is it that I'm missing, here?" you ask.
You are careful to keep your tone even, but a temper long buried has reared up inside of you. This is your life they're disturbing. It may not be much, but it is all you have. You need to get home to Mona. You're cooking her favorite, tonight. She hasn't learned how to prepare the vegetables so that the honey sits just right, not too cloying or too subtle. She needs you.
"We need to trigger another vision," says Farr. "You must have your audience with my Twice-Crossed Lady. Then it will all become plain. You have been seeing visions, lad, have you not?"
With a sigh, you nod. There's no point in denying it. The sisters wreathed in flame are already seared into your memory and whatever indignation you feel at your altered circumstances, you do want to know more.
"How do we do that, then?" asks Fermata. "Can I help?"
You consider asking if she's that eager to be rid of you—for surely accepting this sword, whatever it means, will mean the end of your time in the village, too—but you bite back the words before they pass your lips. Fermata has washed you clean of vomit and shit and semen on too, too many occasions for you to doubt her affection. Your relationship may be an act of revenge, but that doesn't mean that love can't blossom among such bitter herbs.
"I believe you can, yes," says Farr, to your surprise. "My responsibility was to bear the Sword until the Anti-Hero was ready to receive it, so you may hardly consider me an expert on the matter of the Anti-Hero's awakening, but as you said, I have been following you. Based on my observations, your visions have come on in moments of sensory overwhelm, either rapid or gradual. It stands the reason that if we recreate those circumstances, we can encourage another vision."
Their explanation makes a certain amount of sense. The sunlight reflected on the water was overwhelming enough. One could say the same about the state in which you rapidly exited Two Crows Cottage, thoroughly exhausted and befouled. You're not in any hurry to go stare at the sun, not to mention that something tells you it won't work if you're expecting it. That leaves the other option, one which might be able to be undertaken with less violation and more exultation, given the right participants.
You look at Fermata and recognize her wicked smile. She's thinking just the same thing you are. So is Farr, it seems, as they rise and move towards the door.
"I will wait outside until you are concluded," they say. "Do not worry, I will stay out of sight, should there be unexpected passers-by."
"Wait," you call out.
You clamber to your feet again, this time managing a little less splashing and a little more poise. When the Councilperson turns back, their eyes move straight to your delta, confirming your suspicion.
"Are you certain you don't wish to stay?" you offer. "We are not well-acquainted, I grant, but I would still welcome your company."
For the span of three breaths, they look like a deer caught in a snare. Then a tension that they don't seem to even realize they were holding onto goes out of them. They smile, ruefully and appreciatively. They remove their cowled robe, hanging it on a hook by the door. They step back towards the center of the room and wait for you to attend them.
Fermata gives you a stable hand, assisting you as you step out of the bathtub. You pull her close and kiss her deeply, letting your tongue explore her mouth as much as she explored yours before. When you feel her breath go short and her pulse quicken, you release her. After so many years of mistreatment at the alderman's hand, she prefers to attend to her own undressing, and you have grown more than content to let her. It is no cost at all to miss out on the peeling when you get to savor the fruit beneath.
You stride across the little room to Farr, heedless of the trail of floral-smelling bathwater you leave behind. This cabin has seen far worse than perfume splattered on its tempered floorboards. Farr is a little shorter than you, which strikes you as funny, as their clothes always made them seem, in looming, much larger. Beneath the ostentatious robes, they wear a sleeveless silk brocade dress, not particularly unlike your own tunic, though it is of much better make and considerably longer, such that the hem hangs well below their knees. It buttons from their neck to their navel and you take your time unbuttoning each of them in turn, from top to bottom.
As the valley of the smooth, dark skin of their chest grows wider and deeper, you can hear their breath grow more shallow, just as Fermata's did. A thought occurs to you, then.
"Farr," you address them, "have you taken a lover in the village?"
"No," they whimper as your hands slide up under their collar and push the dress off and over their shoulders. "I have not been with anyone but myself in a very long time. It would not have suited my purpose to grow attached."
You snort. It is a foolish way of looking at things, but you suppose you can relate. What other reason could you have for disallowing Mona to be with you in the way she desires? It does not suit her purposes. Or, more accurately, it does not suit your purposes for her. It's not as though you really care about the laws of the village, or their religion. If you did, you wouldn't have been fucking the alderman's wife these past two years.
Noticing that Farr may have misinterpreted the cause for your derision, you show them some appreciation, nibbling on one of their newly-exposed nipples as you slide further down their slim frame. They shiver and groan so beautifully that you must hear it again, so you bite down on their other nipple, a little harder this time.
You follow the path of their dress with your lips, laying soft kisses along their abdomen, which grows increasingly hairy as you descend. You do not mind. It is supple as black silk, just as thickly woven, and recently oiled, which leaves the hint of a pleasantly nutty flavor on your lips as you pass through.
When at last you drop to your knees and pull Farr's dress down across their hips, letting it fall to the floor around their ankles, you are pleased to discover that they are wearing no further article. Their cock springs up near your face as if straining of its own will to meet your lips. It is eager and fully hard, yet it is also small and delicate, and it curves elegantly from base to head.
"May I?" you ask.
"Please," they murmur, plaintive.
You reach out first with your tongue, dabbing playfully at their head and running coyly up and down their shaft before you finally wrap your lips around them and draw them inside your mouth. They half-buckle at the knees and place both hands on the back of your head for support, though this only encourages you to take them deeper. You cannot take them down your throat, they have not the length, but that makes it all the easier to lash your tongue around their base one moment and their crown the next. What they lack in stature, they make up for in zeal, for they do not once flag from being hard as steel, like a little curved dagger.
"Hold," they gurgle, as you pick up speed. "If you go on, I can no longer—"
But you do not hold, except to hold them fully inside, pumping with just your lips until they shoot forth, filling your mouth with their seed. It is piquant and earthy and almost enough to scour Sprat's evil taste from your memory in a single go.
"I am sorry," Farr laments. "I could not stop the flow."
"Please," you scoff, tossing their own word back at them. "I would think any sword-bearer could rise to the occasion more than once in a bout."
They chuckle, low and lilting.
"I will endeavor to please," they conclude, bending down to plant a grateful kiss on your brow.
"As will I," agrees the alderman's wife.
She stands just beyond the threshold of the cabin's inner chamber, wearing not a stitch. It doesn't matter how familiar you are with her in this state, she is still a thing of rare and arresting beauty. That was most certainly the quality for which the alderman selected her when her menses had only just begun to flow. The devil knows he attributes his sons' good looks to his own market savvy. A pity he does not realize that had he let her be a mother, his children might have inherited her wit and passion, too. But, no. Better for him that his progeny be handsome and pliant, not like her, his wild mare of the west.
"Come on, then," she urges. "I've warmed the bed for us. Get in here before it grows cold."
You follow her into the bedroom and Farr follows behind you. Fermata lies on her back among the covers, spreading her legs in unabashed invitation. It would be so easy to enter her just like this—she feels so good and you are so hard—but she deserves more gratitude than that. You dive between her legs face-first and thoroughly apply your tongue to her billowing folds.
She grips the back of your head, again, out of force of habit.
"I thought this was supposed to be about overwhelming you," she protests.
You nip your teeth across her clit and the resulting convulsion coerces her into an agreeable silence. Her state of quiet does not last. You slide two fingers inside of her to accompany your tongue and she mewls and wails, enjoying herself in the admirably uninhibited way that you have tried to learn from her. It is difficult to revel in the freedom of physical connection when your partners see you as at best an object and at worst a deserving receptacle of their most aberrant lusts. There is little that they have done to you that you have not done willingly in Fermata's care, but that last word is the thing that makes all the difference. She cares.
When her hips judder and her moans falter, the signs of her true orgasm, you relent and climb up onto the bed, kneeling before her spread-open delta. You do not need to test her waters. You can see just how wet and ready she is for you. Before she can open her eyes to see you coming, you point your cock and strike true. She gasps and giggles, beaming from ear to ear, though the heaving of her breath and the lolling of her tongue have rid her of her ability to form coherent speech. That's okay. You know what she likes.
Farr seats themselves on the side of the bed, adjacent your coupling. They seem content to watch, for now, though their hands wander. One alights upon her breast—still heavy from her years of would-be motherhood—and the other lands upon your ass. They rub and knead in little pinching circles, luxuriating in the feel of you and gently encouraging your ongoing efforts, an act which dispels any fear you might have had of not being able to meet your usual measure.
You alternate thrusts, first hard and fast, driving into her as far as you can go, clapping your bodies together like a sweaty drum, then slow and shallow, letting the broad ridge of your head play the taut ring of her entrance like a banjo.
"How much do you have left in you?" Fermata asks in-between heavy thrusts.
You glance at Farr, a private joke about the purported resilience of a would-be sword-bearer playing through your thoughts.
"Enough," you bark.
"Then come inside me," she commands. "I want you to fill me up before I ride you so hard that you see stars."
Could she know the contents of your visions? How much insight does Farr have into your situation? How much have they shared before they clued you in?
You decide it doesn't matter. Your mistress has made her expectations clear and you never disappoint. You blast into her, relinquishing control. A dozen more pounding strokes and you explode, your seed rushing out and in. It is an act without risk, for she is rigorous in her application of secret contraceptives (and has been so since her third son nearly killed her on the birthing table), but there is still a vulgar thrill in the attempted impregnation of someone else's wife. He does not have her. He does not hold her. For this moment, she is yours.
Your world spins, but it does not fall away. It isn't oblivion that moves you, but Fermata. She rolls you beneath her, your back falling into the warm place that she so recently occupied, all the while clamping down on your cock with her masterful cunt so that neither you nor your seed can escape her depths. The wave of semen only flows out when she settles into the comfortable saddle of your hips and begins to canter.
She halts after a few bounces, though, looking over at Farr. They stand by the beside, their little dagger of a cock slick and flexing within their loose-fingered grip. There's no need for them to say anything: they want back in.
"I'm afraid that our boy's ass will be out of commission for at least another day or three," says Fermata, addressing the situation. "But my own is more than ready to receive. Join us, won't you?"
Farr nods, nervous with either excitement or trepidation—or a mixture of both.
You feel them enter her from behind, their cock pressing into yours through the thin membrane that divides her passages. Fermata has never particularly lacked for tightness, but this is something else. You can almost forgive Sprat and Spleen their double-entry, if this is how such a thing might feel, but you know that their hate sours even the sweetest pleasure. A sadness overtakes you then, knowing that you and Fermata are unlikely to ever share this pleasure again, but your grief is deliriously expelled when she starts to move again.
The two find their rhythm quickly, Farr crashing upwards as Fermata crashes downwards in a four-legged gallop that is indeed as overwhelming as they promised it to be. The sole problem is that you don't want it to end. You don't want to go away, either from this bed or from this village or from—some nascent understanding whispers in your ear—this world. So much of your life here is terrible, but the bits that aren't are too wonderful to be believed.
Can't it last a little longer?
It ends in a berserk cascade. Farr's cock opens up inside of Fermata, filling her ass with their piquant and earthy nectar. Fermata's hips jitter and quake and this time she releases her own torrent of crystalline tonic, an achievement that under any other circumstances would fill you with pride. You feel your own climax rushing up from the root of your delta, but you do not stay conscious long enough to feel it overflow against them within her. You see stars and then you are among them.
Mona, cloaked in fire with eyes that burn like stars, stands alone at the edge of the universe. Her sisters, younger and elder, are nowhere to be seen, but the great triangle of triangles remains. She puts her fingers on its corners, her touch light and sensuous, and she folds them inwards. The faces change as the pressure builds in the space at their new center, gold growing paler, glass growing brighter, until all four sparkle with ever-changing colors that dance along a stony surface of shifting white.
The entity ponders the prismatic tetrahedron. Then, she holds it out to you.
"This is my creation," she begins, her voice louder than a whirlwind and softer than a summer breeze, "and you are its next keeper. You will be my Anti-Hero."
She lifts the tetrahedron above her head and its colors coalesce on its farthest face before erupting in a laser beam of many-hued light. You cannot see where it leads, but its bearing is steady. Somewhere, out among the galaxies, that rainbow has an end.
"The Rail will lead you to the Hero," the entity continues. "The Hero will lead you to the Princess and the King. Find them before my sister does. Purge them before she incinerates their realm."
You open your mouth to ask a question—you have so many questions—but whatever power lends you a presence here does not also lend you a voice.
"Take up the Control Sword," she concludes. "Raise it high and the ship will come to you, for you are its pilot. Fly swiftly or else you shall surely die—and countless others with you."
The dream ends of its own accord. You return to consciousness in the cabin on the outskirts of the village. Fermata lies atop you, her breath slow with half-slumber. Farr is by your side, watching you warily, awaiting your return. The fact that none of you are clothed and that all of you could do with another bath doesn't seem to take away from the gravity of the situation. The entity at the edge of the universe was naked, too. What other way is there for a flame to be?
"Do you understand, now?" asks Farr.
You lean in to kiss them, soft at first and then more insistently. Their lips are like velvet beneath yours, their breath unusually cool. You allow your tongue to run over theirs but once before you pull back, unable to forget that you are only delaying the inevitable.
"No," you say. "And also yes. I understand what is expected of me, at least in part. I cannot comprehend why it's expected of me in particular, but there's no fighting this, is there?"
Farr shakes their head. Once the Twice-Crossed Lady makes up her mind, there is no changing it. You fly swiftly or you die, only for another to take your place.
"How many were there before me?" you ask.
"I truly do not know," Farr admits. "You are not the first, but you are my first and you will be my last. The Sword was passed to me by my mother who received it from her father. We have been waiting for you for three generations—and my people live long lives."
Something catches in your throat. You know it wasn't your responsibility to make your debut in this cosmic farce any sooner than you did, but you consider how many worlds have been scorched while the ship flew through the darkness without a pilot and you can't help but feel like it's your fault, somehow. So much blood is already on your hands, simply because you took so long to exist. More lives have been lost than you will ever know.
You realize Fermata is awake when she begins to gently stroke your cock. She has no intent to rekindle your desire, but her touch expresses a pleasant appreciation. She doesn't say it, can't say it, but you know she will miss you just as much as you will miss her. You lean up to give her a kiss, too, just as bittersweetly as you did with Farr.
"I won't claim to be ready to take it up," you say, "but I'd like to see it."
Farr steps away to retrieve their ornate robes from the other room. Once they have it spread out, they roughly tear open its inner panels, revealing two secret sewn-in pockets. In the first, there is a heavy leather belt set with a loop in lieu of a full scabbard. In the second, there is something that resembles a sword at least in principle, although the reality of it is somewhat harder for you to grasp. You shift out from underneath Fermata and sit cross-legged on the bed, picking it up for a closer examination.
"You carried it on you person?" asks Fermata, incredulous.
"Always," Farr confirms. "My Council vestments were the latest in a litany of hiding places, but I never kept the Sword more distant from me than I keep my own apparel."
It is both lighter and shorter than you had anticipated, closer to a long knife than anything you would call a proper sword. Worse, it has no blade—or, rather, its blade has no edge. It does have a length of steel attached to its grip, but it is wholly cylindrical, a thin rod with a blunt tip and no violent embellishments, unless you count the irregular notches that line its outer half like some sort of strange key. Its grip is curious, too. While it lacks any cross-guard at all, it is carefully molded to fit the shape of your hand, but only when you hold it in reverse, with the blade pointed down. All in all, you aren't sure what to make of it, except to determine that it looks more like a stick than a sword.
"This is the Control Sword?" you query, trying not to sound either hurt or hurtful.
Farr laughs, deep and from the belly. You didn't think they were capable of making a sound like that. Now that you know that they can, it's going to be that much harder to leave them behind.
"You would not believe how many times I have tried to talk myself through how I might respond to that very question," they answer, without answering. "The best I have come up with is simply to tell you that: yes, it is the Control Sword of legend, of that there can be no doubt. But my Twice-Crossed Lady has not seen fit to share more context than that with me or any of my predecessors, so if its function or purpose was not revealed to you within your visions, then I am afraid we must all remain in the dark."
"She only told me one thing," you reflect. "She told me to raise it high and a ship would come."
You try to act out the motion you just described, but Farr grabs your arm when it's halfway up.
"Not here," they say in sudden panic. "You would bring it down on all our heads and you are not prepared. There is a tale among my people of a vessel that flies among the starry heavens, a ship of wood—"
"—with sails of glass," you interrupt, recalling your dream.
No, not a dream. A vision. Your first vision. That was how all this began.
That observation leads to another: Fermata has been quiet for some time, now, while you and Farr have carried on. She isn't even sitting on the bed beside you, anymore, but has moved to the corner of the bedroom and is rooting through a shabby-looking but impressively large and robust trunk. You are familiar with many of the illicit goods she keeps in that hideaway, but you have never seen the cloth-wrapped bundle she retrieves and sets on the corner of the bed.
"If you're going to summon a ship from the heavens, I imagine you'll need some open space," she opines. "Might I suggest Seagull Canyon? It's a two hours' walk due east from the village. That puts it in range of where you can comfortably reach tonight but also well outside the sight of my husband or his cronies."
She describes it as though she has made this trip many times for exactly that reason.
"That's it, then?" you ask. "Carry the sword. Walk to the canyon. Escape on a star-ship?"
"No, that isn't it," she counters. "I have something else to give you before you go, but first you need to let me give you another bath."
You laugh, but it feels like crying.
Fermata washes you with soap and salt until you feel brand new. It is all you can do not to take her again, over the tub, against the wall, anywhere your bodies can collide, but you resist. However clean your body, your soul is weary, soiled in ways that only time can cleanse. Your cock needs a rest, too. How many times have you shot your seed, today? Too many—and most of them in the wrong places.
You do rest for a little while, perching by the window so that you can feel the early autumn chill as you close your eyes. It gives Fermata and Farr time to wash themselves, that your last memory of them might not lack for good manners. When they are clean and dry, they don their dresses. You barely registered Fermata's clothing when you first woke up in the bath, but it is her usual costume for being seen out in the village: decorated yet demure, poised yet plain, all the qualities that befit her station and hide her wildness beneath three layers of cotton. And Farr? Perhaps it is the way they hold themselves, now that they are freed of their long-carried burden, or maybe it's the absence of the robes that so obfuscated their form, but they are altogether changed: subdued yet sexy, elegant yet enigmatic, the kind of figure you could miss in a crowd and never know the depth of your misfortune.
Finally—and with great finality—Fermata brings you the bundle from the bed and unwraps it for you.
First is a pair of leather trousers, dyed midnight black. They are tight to pull on, but you feel them relax as they warm against your skin and they have already begun to conform to your proportions by the time you finish lacing them up and tying them off. You bend at the knees, testing their flexibility, and are pleased to discover that they have been sized correctly (thanks to a lover's private knowledge) to not pull at your crotch as you squat.
Second is a matching pair of calf-high leather boots, which are somehow an even darker shade of black. Any worries you might have about breaking them in disappear as your soles slide readily into place. It's like they were made for your feet—because they were. You wonder how you ever thought your old boots were comfortable, as well as they did by you.
Third is a low-collared coat with brass buttons that may well be the finest garment you have ever held in your hands, let alone put on your body. Its base color appears to be green, but you'd hardly be able to tell beneath its all-encompassing field of countless embroidered flowers. Each one is five-horned and pink-white, the very image of your namesake in bloom, and taken as a whole they make the coat appear a variegating, scintillating pink. You put it on over your bare chest and fasten all but the topmost buttons.
Farr holds out the heavy belt and you cinch it around your waist, over the coat. The Control Sword settles comfortably in its thong, tapping gently against your hip as you twirl to show your benefactors your every side.
"I don't know about Anti," Fermata sighs, eyes misting. "You look like a Hero to me."
You take her by the cheeks and kiss her deeply, hoping your gratitude is conveyed in the heat between you. As she pulls away, you try to do the same for Farr, but they grab you by the sides of your face and lay their lips softly on your forehead, not a farewell but a benediction.
"Seagull Canyon," you repeat. "Two hours due east."
"That's right," Fermata sniffs.
Farr says nothing, but there is nothing they need to say. You are their Lady's champion. Where you go, her grace goes with you.
You leave the cabin before you can change your mind. The sun is already gone over the horizon. Dinner should have been on the table an hour ago. Mona will never have her honeyed vegetables. Your life with her will end with a broken promise. Perhaps that was the only way your story could end.
Steeling your resolve, hand clenched around the grip of the Control Sword for courage, you head east, moving quickly away from the village. You walk without pause until you reach a rope bridge that crosses a small ravine that marks the furthest point from home you have visited in all the years since you were brought to this place against your will by some well-meaning missionary. This is where she finds you.
"Oh," says a voice from the forest. "You're leaving."
Mona emerges from the shadows and moves onto the bridge. She wears a gown you have never seen before. It is gold against her tawny skin and gossamer-thin, covering everything but hiding nothing. Even from this distance, you can see that her nipples stand on end in the grip of evening. You resist the urge to run to her, to set the rope bridge dancing, to wrap yourself around her and keep her safe and warm.
"How are you here?" you wonder aloud, holding your ground.
"I am drawn to you," she whispers, "like the butterfly is drawn to the bud. I run to you like the stream runs to the sea. I am lost without you, like the head is lost without the heart."
She floats back into the embrace of the woods. Forgetting all other purpose, you follow.
"Do you remember that day?" she asks. "That bridge. These woods. It was the first time I kissed you. You said you couldn't love me like that. You said I was your sister. You said that you would always be there for me. That was the day I learned that you could lie."
She leads you to a cozy spot, where moss grows thickly within an arc of fallen trees. You watch her closely as she descends to the earth, settling herself amongst the mushrooms and night-blooming flowers.
"What do you mean?" you press.
"You did love me like that," she declares. "And I am not your sister. But I knew even then that you would leave me, someday. I have tried for years to convince you to stay, to leave with me, to start anew. But I failed, as I knew I would. You and I were not meant to live in the same world. Not forever."
She spreads her legs wide and pats the ground between them. You hesitate, but there is no more resisting her. She is right, of course. You did love her then. You love her now. Leaving without a word was your only chance to get away unscathed. Now that she is here, your defenses crumble. You cannot surmount what has only multiplied within you all these years.
You undo your belt, setting it safely against a fallen log, the Sword in tow. On top of that, you rest your boots and leather trousers. Last to go is your remarkable coat, unbuttoned and neatly folded, a covenant deferred. Thus stripped of pretense, you go to her.
Mona sings in wordless joy as your hands roam across her body, one hand above her gown and one hand below. Your fingers chew at her overripe tits, squishing and twisting. Your thumb surveys the map of her cunt, exploring her fertile topography. Your lips and tongue and teeth stroke and nip and nibble, reinforcing and amplifying the lewd music in her throat. It is everything you dared not hope it could be. It is paradise in the flesh, yours and hers.
When her hand wraps around your cock and pulls you to her delta, you go willingly to whatever doom awaits you. Her cunt is a catastrophe of frolic and rapture. You swell with renewed vigor, all the day's labors wiped from your slate, as you sink to the depths of her most intimate embrace. She fits around you like one made for the purpose. And then she begins to move.
She rocks her hips upwards, fucking you from below, all tenderness abandoned under the crushing weight of her carnal need. Her legs entwine around your back and she pulls you harder and deeper with every thrust. Whatever care you might have for her comfort, she does not allow. Let the rocks beneath you crack with the force of your union.
You feel yourself opening, your orgasm climbing towards the surface, and as if she can feel it—for perhaps she can—she stops, pushing you back on your knees and seating you on your heels. She does not stop moving herself, though, and she prowls forward, taking your trembling cock in both her hands and wrapping her mouth around your head. You never dreamed that you might get to feel the touch of Mona's lips upon your cock, but there she is and here you are. She sucks you down halfway and pumps furiously at your base and you climax, helpless and ruined.
She cackles with delight as she licks the last of your seed from her lips.
"I want you inside of me," she announces, "but I had to taste you, first. Would that I had a tongue between my legs, we would never have needed such a pause."
Mona's hands are still upon you, stroking your twitching cock and caressing the creases of your abdomen like one pets a cat. You consider, in this moment of brief repose, that you should say something—anything—about what is to come, but she has stricken you of words. Soon enough, against all odds, your iron is restored and you are ready to go again.
She turns away from you, positioning herself on all fours, ass in the air. She does not ask you to mount her like an animal, but the speech of her body is plain. She wants you to breed her and no part left of you can turn away.
You climb above her, straddling her ass, pointing your cock at her rear as your hands find purchase on her tit and her throat. You enter her like a peal of thunder, your joining electric, plunging towards her womb like a spear through her belly. Any higher thought, any consideration for her future, any lonely desire not to leave her—them—behind is a thing for hindsight, not a concern for a creature of action. There is no stopping this. There is no stopping you.
Mona screams in gratified reconciliation and you come, filling her in all the ways you can fill her. She grinds against you long after you feel your strength begin to fade, extracting every last soldier and setting them to task. All you want now is to hold her, but you tumble, turning, fleeing fire and seeking dirt.
You see a final vision in your dreams.
The youngest entity, little Mona cloaked in fire with eyes that burn like stars, absconds from her watchtower at the edge of the universe, unable to keep on looking in. Her elder sister has built a ship of wood with sails of glass and set it on a rail of rainbow light. Even now it flies to meet her mortal champion. Apart, they are of no consequence. Together, they could break the very wheels of chaos. This preclusion cannot be allowed, or all will soon be lost.
So it is for the three sisters, those gyres of naked flame. One is ever searching, one is ever watchful, one is ever in pursuit. In knowing their purposes, so too do you know their names.
She Who Goes Before, the Death of Many.
She Who Stays Behind, the Death of Few.
She Who Follows After, the Death of You.
You feel the lick of their flames against your skin—but you are not ash. Not yet.
Mona is gone when you wake from your nap. There is hardly a sign that she was even there, save the new ache in your heart and in your hips. The moon has risen full and bright above you and whatever cold came in with the sunset has gone out with high midnight, leaving the air warm and still. Softly singing a lullaby that you will never hear again, you don your garb and return to the path.
An hour passes, and a little more, but you reach the cliff of Seagull Canyon. How silly you feel in that moment, how utterly gauche. You've left everything behind to stand at the literal edge of an abyss with nothing more than a stick and a nice coat to your name. What kind of champion could you ever prove to be?
But then it strikes you: you can be any kind of champion you want.
You raise the Sword above your head, rod pointed to the sky, and wait for the ship to come.