The Princess and the Blade

[Soran Nightblade]

Havi looked away from Laurius and offered no further resistance. It was Tenara's choice, and the mention of the tutor both reassured and exhausted him. "Yes, we can proceed," he said.

[Emora Deen]

Laurius nodded to Tenara, but Tenara seemed distracted watching Havitharon. “We’ll begin by putting him back in the sword,” he said, urging her on.

Tenara turned her attention down to the blade. She grasped the handle with both hands. She couldn’t feel the hilt in her numb palm, but she could feel its weight.

Her will was easy enough to access with her magic. Asking Havi to return to the blade was as smooth as sweeping her hand down his spine. Her magic was an intoxicating caress, pulling him towards her and into the metal beneath her hands. She felt the rush of it in her blood, the ache of it in her center. And it was nothing compared to how it would feel when she pulled him back out.

[Soran Nightblade]

Havi shivered and closed his eyes, and the magic swept him away. He didn't need to look for the route this time or confirm there was space for his soul to fit. He simply went, and the power placed him exactly where he belonged. There was the usual intermediate stillness, and then he could sense her consciousness above his. With her magic in tact, her mind was a sea of starlight around him, all power and gentleness intermixed. He wanted to belong to it. He'd waited his whole life to serve someone like this. He would never find another.

"She thinks you'd do anything she asked of you, if you thought it would please her. Is it true? Is your bond with her like being enslaved? Do you have a choice?"

His soul throbbed, warping the strange not-space around him. He'd found her. Even though he'd finally found her, she... *I am here,* he told her, careful to keep emotion out of his voice.

[Emora Deen]

Tenara looked down at the sword, hearing the weight of his voice. The tone seemed different than before, and she wasn’t certain if that was the magic’s doing or something else. “He is in the sword,” she told Laurius once she was certain her voice wouldn’t come out thickened by desire. “Faster than before.”

“To be expected,” he said. “Can he sense anything different or are the sensations the same?”

Tenses turned the question on Havitharon while Colonel prowled nearby.

[Soran Nightblade]

*Your presence is...vaster,* he attempted vaguely. He was searching with his senses for anything that might let him find his own way back to his body, without relying on her. *I am looking for a way back, but it's just... a sea of light.*

He extended his senses to her as he had before, showing her a panoptical awareness of everything else in the room with them. It felt easier to tap into her mind's current with her magic alight, but he also sensed that if he were to trespass over her will here, it would be like touching an electrified rod. He pictured the completion he'd sensed before, when her blood had linked his soul and the sword, and tried to visualize that on its own. *What if it doesn't have to be your blood? What if there just needs to be something in the real world that has a physical connection to my soul somehow,* he said, unsure how he thought that.

[Emora Deen]

Tenara's brow furrowed, uncertain what Havi meant by that, so she relayed the question to Laurius. He grew quiet, jotting down more notes. "Ask him for an example," he said. "What does he feel he needs."

Tenara turned that question back on Havi. She couldn't think of what he might physically be able to connect to other than the sword and... her. But, she didn't think that counted. Maybe he meant something else.

[Soran Nightblade]

Havi's thoughts were quiet for a few moments while he thought. *Like a piece of my horn,* he mused slowly.

[Emora Deen]

Tenara's belly wrenched. Her eyes fluttered, and she looked around as if trying to find something to focus on. He wanted to take a piece of himself off and keep it in the real world to follow back to? His horn?

"What? What did he say?" Laurius asked, sensing by her reaction he had said something.

"He thinks he could find his way out of the sword without my help if he had an object of his grounding him here."

"Like what?" Laurius asked. "Specifics, Tenara."

"A part of one of his horn," she said, gripping the sword tight.

Laurius tapped his chin. "That could work. Of course, there is only one way to find out..."

Tenara was already shaking her head. *Won't it hurt you terribly? They are so sensitive...*

[Soran Nightblade]

*I will be okay if you do it,* he said. The words weren't technically a lie. He was actively avoiding thinking it through in detail.

[Emora Deen]

Tenara was uncertain, but... she also didn't have horns. She didn't know how it worked, and she surely didn't know how this Yurivis thing worked. Maybe they could? Hadn't he said when they first met that sometimes horns were removed? He had thought Elias planned to cut off her horns in the brothel room he'd locked them away in.

*I will do it if you wish,* she said softly. *But only if you wish, and as long as it won't hurt you...*

"We cannot hear you," Laurius said.

"He says he will be okay if I do it," she said softly.

Laurius glanced at Ren, appraising him to gauge his expression on the matter. He didn't ask anything aloud though, reserving any comments or questions he had for later. "You can draw him out now."

Tenara nodded and reached her hand out to the sword. This time, she nicked her thumb. The slightest cut, but it poured power. Agonizing bliss bloomed inside, turning everything heavy and molten. Want and madness swirled together as she willed him out of the blade and into reality. Her body ached to be touched, consumed.

[Soran Nightblade]

Ren's returned Laurius's appraising look with a slightly queasy one. The thought of cutting through a horn made his stomach turn, but Thvoros had spent his life doing crazier things. All those black rings... did he even have any sensation left in them at all?

In the end, all he could give Laurius was a skeptical shrug.

Havi flickered to life a moment later, once again clutching the desk for balance while his senses restored. Tenara's magic kissed through him like a wet dream, and his pants fit poorly at the moment. He didn't bother trying to hide his excitement; everyone here knew what would happen anyway. He turned his attention to Tenara and was relieved to see the tiny wound on her thumb, already apparently healed over. Much better than having a huge open gash, but he knew the cost of summoning him had been more than just the blood this time. "How is your head? Perhaps you should sit a minute," he said, watching her closely.

[Emora Deen]

Tenara lifted her gaze, flushed cheeks glowing beneath the candlelight. As usual, the effects of conjuring him were delayed be a minute. She missed when she could live in the bliss and the want before the pain, when they could tangle themselves together and indulge in that shared burning desire.

She nodded to him and moved to the chase that Colonel had occupied earlier. She sat, but she knew it would have to be more than a minute. When the vertigo came, she would find it hard to stand, and when the headache rolled in, she would be done for the night.

Tenara laid the blade across her lap and smoothed her hands into her thighs, as if she could rub out the need to be touched. "So far, so good," she said. But then she felt a trickle of warmth beneath her nose, and blood dripped onto her dress. She almost laughed, because what was one more drop of blood today. She grabbed her burgandy skirt and pulled it up to press against her nose. "I wore the right color today," she said.

[Soran Nightblade]

Havi rushed to stand by her, and Ren wasn't far behind him. Havi put his hands lightly on her shoulders in case she passed out.

"Okay... we are done today," he said with a pointed look to Laurius.

[Emora Deen]

Laurius scribbled the last few notes into his journal and slammed it shut. "Done. Of course," he said, nodding. He joined them around the chair, appraising her. The warmth of lust in her cheeks was draining into a sallow color. Her eyes grew unfocused, pupils dilating. Laurius sighed, taking the sword and slipping it back into the sheath at her waist.

Tenara melted into Havi's hands on her shoulders, partly because she enjoyed the feel of it but also because the world was starting to spin. She turned her head to the left and the world tilted right. She clenched her eyes, smeared blood from beneath her nose. The pain was coming now and even in the dim candlelight the world felt too bright.

"We're done for the day," Laurius reiterated. "Let's head back to the house."

[Soran Nightblade]

Havi took a knee next to Tenara's chair, his cool hands stroking the hair from her face. "Can I lift you, or would you prefer to sit still?" he asked quietly. "We can stay here as long as you need."

Ren hovered close by, concerned by her sudden condition, but he was taking steps backward to keep up with Laurius as the man left.