The Princess and the Blade

[Soran Nightblade]

Havi helped Tenele get Vlad clear of the building. A huge crowd had formed at the mouth of the alley, and guards were working to manage the situation. Without a word, they redirected toward one of the other dilapidated back doors that was out of sight of onlookers. Havi entrusted Vlad's full weight to Tenele and broke open the door with a heavy shoulder blow. He kicked it wide, but turned the other way. "I'm going back."

He didn't wait for their response; he wasn't interested in their permission. He ran back to the cellar and sight of smoke flurrying up from the stairwell. He sprinted down the stairs, into the room with the shattered sigils. There was so much dust. He spotted Tenara just as the joist above her gave way, and he dove. He knocked her to the floor beneath him as the building collapsed on top of them.

Pain shot through his back, but he wasn't sure where the injury was, or if it was severe. He held fast on his hands and knees over her, doing his best to shield her from the rubble.

[Emora Deen]

The air left Tenara's lungs when Havitharon knocked her back. If not for that, she would have screamed herself hoarse as the building collapsed over them. She wrapped her arms over her head, curling in on herself beneath Havitharon. There was a horrendous, rumbling chorus of cracking wood and wailing. Dust filled the air, choking, and the dark surrounding them became heavy. Permanent. Havitharon's weight pressed over her, and she reached blindly for him, clinging to him.

Slowly, the air around them quieted, save for the occasional pop and shift of wood as the building settled. The dark broke with a pale glow of light spilling through an impossibly small crack somewhere above. It tunneled through the dark and dust, adding a barely-there dimness to their surroundings. Just enough that she could see the dusty, hazy shadow of Havitharon's form over hers. She coughed, taking a ragged breath and tasting grime on her tongue.

Her mind swam. Her body felt heavy. Depleted. It hummed where holy magic had coursed through, burning her nerves until they held a lingering sting—as if they’d somehow managed to tattoo runes on her bones. She’d also used a lot of magic… The urge to rest her head, her eyes—to sleep—was strong, but completely at odds with the adrenaline rushing through her. Just as she began to fade out, her body jolted, remembering they were under an entire building.

How were they alive? How were they not crushed beneath the weight above? Tenara stretched her hands out to the sides of them, trying not to panic. They were alive. For now. How much space did they have? How much air? It felt like they had at least a foot or more on either side of them, but she couldn't tell how much above. Was he being crushed? Was the weight of the building on his back? He wasn’t that strong…

"Havitharon?" Her voice trembled. She coughed the dust out, lifting shaking hands to touch his face. One hand skimmed his cheek and the other felt the wetness at his throat. "Are you... are you okay?" She felt along him, searching for wounds.

[Soran Nightblade]

It took some effort to focus on Tenara's voice through the ringing in his head. Havi blinked against his blurry vision and took stock of his body. His neck was sticky with blood and sweat, some from his neck and some from some fresh injury on the back of his skull. A hard weight rested across his back, but it didn't feel like anything had been impaled or broken. Oddly, what gave him the most trouble was his right femur. Pain wrenched through bone and muscle as though placed in a giant vice.

"I'm alright. Something... might be through my leg. What about you?" He tried moving some weight to his other side and off the offending leg, but something creaked in the heavy wreckage piled on his back, and he quickly stopped squirming. Moving might make it worse. He looked down toward the touch of her hand on his skin and found her eyes through the haze. It was hard to see her properly. She looked so pale, and so tired. He couldn't get the image of her suffering on the ground in that circle out of his mind. He wanted to touch her, feel whether she was okay.

[Emora Deen]

Tenara was nodding at his words like they were comments about the weather, as it took a minute for her fuzzy mind to process them. She stiffened when they did. "Something might be through your leg?" she asked, fumbling with her jittery hands to sit up much as the space allowed, at the same time he was shifting to his side. They both froze at the groan of the building around them, staying as they were—her on her back and him still hovering over her.

When she was certain no more of the building would collapse on them, she slid down beneath him, twisting as much as she could to feel her hand along his side, and hips, and thigh. She wasn't sure which leg, so she did both. Running trembling hands over them until she found the problem.

[Soran Nightblade]

Havi focused on the touch of her hands. It confused him when she reached down the leg he'd injured and was able to run her fingers cleanly along it. It felt crushed, or pierced through, and he was sure something should have impeded her sliding touch. He hissed as she touched the epicenter of the pain, and he waited for her to make some explanation of what she felt there, but she just moved on. Confused, he twisted his neck in a fruitless attempt to see what she was doing.

That was when he noticed the dull glint of dusty metal on the ground next to them. He might not have recognized it if not for the shape of the hilt sticking out of the rubble at an odd angle. "Is that the sword?" he strained. He was beginning to feel the weight of the material packed above them.

[Emora Deen]

Tenara turned her attention from Havitharon's leg, looking around the space with the very minimal light she had. The sword... Shit! The sword! Tenara spotted it, or the hilt of it. The blade was wedged between crumbled pieces of stone and wood. Her heart stopped.

"No..." She scurried to it so fast she swayed on her hands and knees, feeling dizzy and sick—dizzy from the movement and sick with knowing. She wrapped her hands around the hilt, half lying on her side, and pulled, giving no thought to the stability of the rubble around them. She needed to free the sword, to free Havitharon. It wouldn't budge. "No, no, no nonono..." Tenara placed her shoe on the broken stone nearby, and lying on her side, used it as leverage to pull against the sword, until her sweat-slicked palms slipped off the hilt. Even if her body had the strength, it still wouldn't be enough.

Her mind raced, along with her breath. They were trapped. Buried. It would take... it would take so long for someone to dig them out. That was if they weren't killed in the shifting debris throughout the process.

If she hadn't gone outside. If her fear hadn't made her run. If she'd stayed and allowed her aunt to peek into her broken mind... Tenara began to cry. "I'll get you out. I promise." She began to frantically dig at the rubble, squeezing her fingers into the crevices between stones and pulling. One popped loose, and she pulled it away. The rubble over them groaned just as she caught sight of the shadowed, grizzly, dusty, bloodied cleric's face wedged beneath the stones. She choked, caught in his dead, wide eyes.

[Soran Nightblade]

"Tenara," Havi soothed. He carefully eased his weight to the left side just enough to slide his right arm out and scoop her gently back under him. His hand thumped back to the floor next to her shoulder. He looked down at her, physically strained but calm. His forehead dropped to brush against hers. "Tenara. You are safe. Your parents are right outside, and they are on their way to us."

[Emora Deen]

Tears trailed wet lines through the dust on her skin, down the sides of her face and into her hair. The press of his forehead to hers made her feel safe, just as his words were reassuring. But she knew he felt the damage to the sword. She knew he must feel so uncomfortable, if not in pain. He said so, didn't he? It felt like something was going through his leg.

Did that mean the sword was broken? Was it dented? Punctured? She hiccuped a sob.

At least her parents were safe, as he said. They were above her. Her father... She remembered the sight of him, dull-eyed and contorted on the floor when she'd been moments from risking having Havitharon's throat being slit to kill the man holding his horn.

Tenara reached up and trailed a shaking hand over his horn, the one the man had touched. Her fingers skimmed the gold band. Hers.

"Thank you for getting them out," she said, her voice tight. "I am... so sorry. I..." If I hadn't gone out. If I had known they were camped outside...

[Soran Nightblade]

Havi's eyes closed at the soothing touch of her fingers on his horn. "There is no reason to apologize. You had good reason to want to escape. It was my strategy that put you in danger." He touched his forehead to hers, a little heavier this time. His limbs felt less responsive than they had a moment ago, less real. It was a dangerously familiar sensation. He gritted his teeth and bolstered the shudder in his arms. "Tenara... the sword is trying to pull me back. Can you do something... help me stay with you."

[Emora Deen]

His words sobered her, and she dragged her hands across her eyes, twisting towards the sword again. She reached out for it, wrapping her hands around it. Her gaze fell on the dead man's. She felt rage tinge the self-hatred. If it wasn't for them... She recalled killing them. The joy of it. It was a sour aftertaste, because she hated hurting people, hated killing. She hated what her magic made her become, because in that moment she didn't feel entirely herself. She was the embodiment of her rage. It drove her, controlled her.

She'd crushed them like paper lanterns, crushed the building too, apparently. Couldn't she move a few stones? Maybe the whole thing?

But Tenara couldn't find the magic anymore. Whether because she truly had no control over calling it or because of exhaustion, she wasn't sure. She reached further forward with one hand, wrapping it around the blade. She pulled, and as she did her hand sliced across the dusty steel. She hissed, feeling both pain and pleasure like a hot lance across her already singed nerves.

Her eyes bloomed with red light, and Tenara willed the stones to part away from the metal. It was like moving them with her bare hands. She strained, even with the sword's magical help, to shift them. But they moved. Just enough. The world around them groaned in protest. She wrenched the sword free, rolling once it came loose. Dust wafted in the air, but nothing collapsed over them.

Tenara ran her bleeding hand over the blade, soothing and searching for damage, trying to ignore the bud of pleasure growing like the spark of a wildfire. She turned her attention from the blade, knowing she could have a blacksmith fix it. She would fix it any way she could. Instead, she focused her attention on willing Havitharon into being.

One hand held the blade, letting it cut into her skin—enjoying its bite. The other hand cupped his dirty face. "Stay," she said, hunger in her voice. A thumb danced over his lips.

NOT the time. Not the time. Not the time.

She tried, as she'd done in the cottage, to wedge that need back down inside. To ignore the burning desire—the overwhelming ache to be touched, kissed, fucked. She shook her head, but it was impossible. She knew him now. Knew what it was like for his mouth to touch hers, for it to touch... elsewhere. She knew what it was like to take him, to feel him buried beautifully, bruisingly deep. Now, pushing down that desire, that want, that pleasure, that requirement for it to be fulfilled, was like holding back an ocean wave.

She kissed him, curling her fingers against the back of his head. She felt wetness. A wound. Her magic snaked over it, and the pleasure she always felt at making him whole combined with the bliss of healing him. She moaned against his mouth, not resisting the feeling. Not caring if it wasn't the time. She mended him and devoured him, lost to it.

[Soran Nightblade]

Havi wasn't sure what Tenara was trying to do with the sword, but he was too focused on trying not to disappear to ask her. His thoughts were becoming frenzied. He might disappear and get a front row ticket to what would happen to Tenara when the rubble he was holding collapsed. Why now? Was it because the sword was damaged? Or because Tenara was weakened? Was she more injured than she'd told him? He squeezed his claws into the stone below him as if that would help connect him to her world a little bit longer.

A crisp, sudden pleasure sifted into him then, and he heard movement next to him. He forgot to breathe, caught off guard by the sensation. What was she doing? A fresh slice of power licked over his belly, between his legs... He shivered, barely remembering to focus on the weight piled over him. Disapproval battled with primal need. She was hurt. She shouldn't overdo it. He parted his lips to try to say so, but a warm hand pressed to his cheek.

"Stay."

His warning was swallowed in a moan. Her command sent his blood rushing. Her hands wrapped around his head and neck, and her mouth devoured him. Numbness was no longer a concern. His Yurivis was imploring him, touching him, holding him, while her magic sucked at him from the inside out. He didn't try to stop her. He wouldn't even know how to try if he wanted to. He didn't dare indulge the wish to press himself down against her. He might be finished the moment he did. Oh, and he would also drop the building on them. That should probably be the bigger concern at the moment. "Te...nara," he begged, his breath building into restless moans.

[Emora Deen]

Tenara kissed her way down his neck, her hands snaking over his shoulders, chest. She reached for the buckle on his trousers. The metal clanged in her hand as she drew it apart, and then the lacing on his pants. The magic burned it’s way through her, climbing until she felt drunk and dizzy and forgetful of anything but the want—forgetting his shared injury with the sword. Her own pain was a dull, forgotten afterthought, wedged so far down beneath the drowning ecstasy it might as well have belonged to someone else.

Her breath fanned over his chest and stomach. This time, she didn’t have to push the feelings down, or pretend she didn’t want to tear his clothes off and take him until he roared her name.

“Let me have you,” she pleaded against his skin, her lips a featherlight brush along his pectoral. When she’d freed him to the warm air, she wrapped her hand around his length and groaned at the size. She stroked him tenderly before impatience and desire swelled into a dizzying heat, and she raked her skirts up to her hips, tugging her undergarment until it lay forgotten and tangled around one ankle.

Her eyes glowed a dull ruby, watching him, wanting, confused as to why he wasn’t moving to devour her too. Her gaze flicked behind him, narrowing on the wood that seemed to be lying on his back. Had he really been supporting the weight of a building this whole time?? Boards shifted ever so slightly, locking together until their weight was self-suspended. But that… that was all she had left. Dust flecked onto them and the light in her eyes fizzled. Tenara slumped back, dizzy with exhaustion and burning with unfulfilled desire. Her head lolled as she fought to focus through the haze of contrasting sensations. Lingering, intoxicatingly delicious threads of magic buzzed along every nerve, bordering her on climax from that alone. She felt drunk on it as she parted her legs for him, sleepy eyes glancing up as she curled a hand in his loose trousers and tugged his hips down towards her. “Please, Havi…”

[Soran Nightblade]

Havi looked over his shoulder at the suspended debris, and shivered. His body and mind felt completely conflicted. He knew, somewhere in his logical brain, that it was insane to do what she was asking at a time like this. How long would the rubble stay like that? How much strength did either of them have right now?

His body screamed at him to touch her and rejoin the contact he'd lost when her fingers left him. He had enough room to see her now underneath him, to see what her fingers were doing and to wish his mouth was doing it instead. He leaned over her, staying high enough that he thought he could probably catch the rubble's weight without crushing her if he had to... or at least he stood a chance at trying. This was insane. He must be losing his mind.

He slid a hand under her thigh and lifted it uncertainly, making room for him to press his hips low against her. He monitored the vice-like pain in his leg as he moved. Holding still did nothing to ease it, nor did using the leg make the sensation worse. As strange as it was, the discomfort wasn't enough to hold back the heat she'd started inside him. He purposely avoided looking at the sword beside them. Perhaps it was a bit mangled, but he was alive and here. He craved her. He was made for her. He slid himself languorously along the slickness her fingers had been teasing. Soft words that didn't sound like curses sighed from his lips as he glided slowly back and forth against her.

[Emora Deen]

Tenara’s breath turned ragged at the sensation of him sliding against her. His words were like a distant song. She was too delirious to understand if they were his language or hers. The magic she’d woven to solidify him, and heal him, was just beginning to ebb, but not quite fast enough for the rational part of her mind to click on.

She was already climbing towards a climax, and the shock of it sent her hand out, clutching around the forearm supporting one of her thighs. “Ha!” Her back arched, nails digging into him. It was impossible. She was… and he wasn’t even… “Havi! I’m, I’m…” Her other hand clamped over her mouth as she crested, muffling a sweet, blissful cry.

She came down, dizzy and uncertain and… tired. Something began to nag at the back of her mind, a tiny voice saying her focus needed to be elsewhere, but the feel of him against her… She curled her leg around him, drew him closer until she felt the promise of him nudge against her opening.

Her hand tenderly brushed against his face and…

“Your leg.” She blinked the lusty haze from her eyes. “You’re hurt.” What was she doing? He was hurt! She felt embarrassment burn through her entire being, and a budding frustration with the effects of her magic. Because, even though the rational part of her mind was coming back to her, her entire body still very much wanted him buried inside. “Are you okay? Is this okay?”

[Soran Nightblade]

He made a soothing sound, air blowing across teeth, perhaps his culture's equivalent of a shh, and stroked her cheek. "I'll be okay. You haven't hurt me." Adoration was naked in his eyes and his protective posture over her. Her climax had filled him with an immense sense of achievement, and her cresting voice still replayed in his ears. He was still full against her, but he didn't try to go any further. He brushed his thumb gently below one of her tired eyes. "Your family will help you soon. Let me hold some of it," he whispered.