Everyday Love: Entries 11 and 12

Entry 11, forty-three days after Silk Talons: Chapter 8

From Ginal's journal:

When I first joined the Lancer's Guild, I was just Ginal, a nobody.  I didn't want fame or glory, I just sought the means to defend myself from a world that I believed hated me.  Gaining the skills the make enough gil to get by was a nice bonus.

But now I'm becoming a legend, they call me the Emerald Lancer, nearly on par with the primal-slayer with whom I share my heart.  The Coeurlclaw King, Cancer, the Prince of Pestilence.  Even though I did none of this on my own, and came horribly close to death more than once.  And now, I am thrust into a great tournament of nations, a three-sided contest to see if the marauders, gladiators, or lancers reign supreme in melee combat.

When Y'wain told me he wanted me to represent Gridania in this grand tournament, I very quickly declined.  No, thank you, I'm no glory hound, and I am still certain I'm not ready for such a thing on my own.  But then Y'wain told me something I hadn't though of before, that none of the great heroes of legend truly did anything on their own.  The stories are simply told like that to inspire all of us to be our best and, try to make a difference.  It makes a lot of sense, and I'd say it eased my mind a bit.  Of course, Selah and Grezel being there to stroke my ego a bit didn't hurt.

Gods damn and bless the both of you.

So I dove into some last minute training, even had a couple lengthy sparring sessions with all three of my lance-wielding extended family.  If you ever want a damn good workout, try going toe-to-toe with a Guildmaster, an Azure Dragoon, and a legendary Scion.  I think I'm still sore from that.

Then it was off to Ul'dah, and their great gladiator arena.  I truly don't know what it is that Selah loves so much about Ul'dah.  The city is so closed and cramped feeling, the stone is all drearily colored, there's a terrible lack of anything green, and it's far too hot to be comfortable.  As well, all those belligerent merchants trying talk you into things you don't need is just beyond annoying.

But I'll admit, it's not without it's charms.  The food is quite good, and the restaurants are nicely decorated.  The fountains around the city are very lovely in their crafting, and as the setting of my first date with Selah, it does hold a little fondness for me.  Especially that indoor park called the Gold Court, where we first fell in love and shared the most wonderful kiss of my life.

Fine, Ul'dah, you're not all bad.

After a small series of exhibition matches came the main event, a three-way battle between myself, and the best the marauders and gladiators had to offer.  I was nervous as all the hells, and I was certain I would fail and look like a fool.  Then Selah told me two things that shook me from stupor.  First, that she believed in me, and it was time for me to show the world how strong I am.  Then, my dear journal, she told me something I would have never thought I'd hear.  She promised that if I won, she would cover me in syrup and cream and clean me with her tongue, and then allow me to do the same to her.

If you think I am above being bought and motivated with promises of hyper erotic fantasy fulfillment, then you are very mistaken.

So I feinted, and side-stepped, and twirled, and parried, and swung.  My plated cousins-in-arms united and came at me together, lumbering upon me with those giant axes and body covering shields.  They swung, lunged, stabbed and hammered down on me until I was cornered and ready for the finishing blow.

Did I lose, or win?  I'll tell you this, my dear journal.  I have here the finest syrup and cream that Miounne keeps on hand, as well as a few choice cherries, and now I'm off to hold Selah to her promise.

Not that she's going to complain about it.



From Selah's journal:

She spins and leaps and whirls, dancing among the blades, darting and retreating, teasing death. I sit in the front row of the arena, fighting down my need to vault over the rail and come to her assistance. My assistance is not allowed. This is not a battle, but a contest. But it’s an unequal one — one Miq’ote lancer against the allied forces of a Roegadyn marauder and a burly Hyur gladiator.

It’s a temporary alliance, forged by the others’ opinion that she’s the weak link in the triad, and eliminating her will let them concentrate on fighting each other. That’s how they see this — a contest of gladiator versus marauder. The lancer is an afterthought, a way to let Gridania feel it has an equal part in this contest.

We don’t agree. Ywain and I have always thought that a lancer, unencumbered by shields and armor, is a match for the heavier meleé classes. This contest is our chance to prove it. And Ginal is our representative. It’s also her fight in ways the other two can’t possibly suspect — her way to prove to herself that she has recovered her poise and center, after her nearly fatal encounter with the Cancer monster.

And so I sit and try not to bite my nails as those two hulks — crab-like in their jointed armor shells — bear down on my beloved. The healers are standing ready to pull her to safety once their blades bite home. The audience looks slightly bored. They are waiting for the real contest to begin.

The armored warriors have her cornered, and are angling in for the kill. The gladiator faces her head-on from behind his shield, while the marauder steps in from the flank, axe swinging. For the first time, Ginal looks afraid. Her gaze sweeps across the stands, and finds me as I stand, gripping the low railing that keeps me from coming to her rescue. Our eyes lock.

And slowly, deliberately, I stick out my tongue and sweep it over my upper lip, as if I were savoring one of Miounne’s honey-based desserts.

Ginal’s eyes widen, then narrow. She waits as the gladiator steps forward, sword swinging downward in a killing arc. Then, suddenly, she is airborne. She gains more height by bouncing off the astonished marauder’s helmet. Then she falls like a meteor, striking the armor over the gladiator’s right shoulder, piercing it, sheering metal and flesh and bone to disable his sword-arm. Blood pours onto the yellow sand of the area as the gladiator falls to one knee. A moment later, the healers pull him from the arena. He’ll live to fight another day. But perhaps he’ll have more respect for lancers.

The crowd is screaming at the sudden reversal. Bets are being renegotiated. The Lalafell bet-sellers are offering even money on Ginal and the marauder.

I sit back down and smile. Nobody but Ginal had noticed my lip-licking gesture. And, if they had, they would not have known what it meant. But I know Ginal more intimately than anyone, and one thing I know is that her libido is an elemental force, perhaps equal in sheer strength to her capacity for anger. And so I had made a little side-bet with her before the match. “Win this, and I’ll cover you with kukuru syrup and whipped cream, and personally lick you clean again. And then you can do the same to me.”

“Can I put cherries on your nipples?” she joked.

“This can be arranged.”

We both laughed, but she had a little smile for an hour afterwards, just thinking about it.

That’s why, when Ginal was close to despair, I licked my lips. And it’s why she rallied and came through. That gladiator had no idea he had just been defeated by a sexual fantasy.

The marauder was still standing. But the balance of battle had changed, and he was wondering what kind of hell-cat he was facing there on the blood-stained yellow sand. Ginal didn’t give him long to wonder. The Roegadyn was too large to be agile, and you can’t defeat what you can’t hit. The little Miq’ote was dancing around him like a bee harassing a buffalo. And this bee had a wicked sting. His axe-stroke was a deadly silver blur, but Ginal was no longer inside its arc. She was behind him. One thrust to the back of his knee, and the marauder balanced on one leg. He tried to swing again, but Ginal took out his other knee.

The Roegadyn fell like a tree. The healers moved in, and Ginal stood alone in the arena as the crowd went wild.

She bowed to the judges. But she was looking at me. Her lips moved. I’m the only one in that stadium who knew what she had just whispered.

“Cherries.”

Entry 12, forty-six days after Silk Talons: Chapter 8


From Ginal's Journal:

The nerve of that woman!  And frankly, I'm not happy with Selah, either.  

The day began just fine.  I woke up to see the morning sun on my love's face, and we then spent around an hour just talking about what to do for breakfast, with a little fooling around here and there for the fun of it, before agreeing to ask Tim an Oz, and Grez if they wanted to join us.  Ever since those three took it upon themselves to bring us back to our senses, we've tried to include them in meals or outings whenever we can remember to ask.

After a lovely breakfast of great food, my favorite eastern-Shroud grown coffee, and the company of good friends, Selah and I asked Tim to grant us a day's leave from our work for some time together.  Tim is almost excessively generous with giving his mercenaries leave, but I'd say the results are hard to argue with.  Maybe the reason Doom keeps achieving more than most other mercenary companies is because we're all so rested?  

So Selah and I spent the rest of the morning browsing the markets and splashing in the streams, until we found our way to the top of the Apkallu Falls.  And there was where Selah layer me back and told me how she was going to have her way with me.  I was both excited and frightened to be having the fantasy we had discussed fulfilled.

And have her way with me she did. She was set on this being something beyond special and memerable, and twice stopped and forbade me to have my climax.  The tension that built up inside me was something I had never experienced, and when I was nearing the point where I knew I couldn't hold it in any longer, the most thoughtless, rudest person popped out of the bushes.  This roegadyn woman claimed to of been listening to us for a long while and felt curious about what she had been hearing.

I don't believe that for a moment.  More than likely, this woman was thinking with her loins even more than I tend to, and on no uncertain terms do Selah and I share or experiment with others.  And if she couldn't be any more insulting than she already had been, when she saw my form as it is, she had the nerve to remark about my parts.  You rude, thoughtless, sneaky, dishonest bitch!

And did my beloved come to my defense and proclaim my beauty to this woman?  No, because Selah was too busy having a near meltdown when she heard the roegadyn introduce herself as Silver Rose, this same story writer whose works Selah is always burying her nose in.  If you happen to read this, my dear Selah, before I talk to you, then know this:  I don't give a good gods damn if it's Silver Rose, or Kan-E-Senna herself.  You know very well the kind of hardships I've faced in trying to accept my body, so if someone makes a rude or callous statement about it, you come to my defense!

This story writer says she wants to talk to us about something.  Fine, I'll listen and play along, for Selah's sake.  But when this is done, mark my words, you will apologize to me, Silver Rose.

Or I could always ruin one of those precious writing hands.



From Selah's Journal:

A few days ago, back before the melee contest, Ginal and I were soaking in the company hot-tub. We were discussing sexual fantasies, and I asked her what she would like to do that we had not already done.

She thought about it for a while, lying back in the steam, her eyes closed. We had done so many things together. Our most recent erotic innovation had involved whipped cream and strategically-placed cherries. But she surprised me when she looked at me with emerald eyes and said, “I want you to take me in a public place, a place where we risk discovery. I think that would be incredibly exciting.”

It would also be incredibly brave for Ginal, whose intimate anatomy is unique in including the parts of both genders. She has always taken pains to cover up, especially when arousal makes her “male bits” more prominent. Courting exposure was a new development for her. Her recent successes had brought her more self-acceptance. Or at least more kinkiness. I wasn’t sure which. And I wasn’t sure it mattered.

“I’ll see what I can do,” I said. Which degenerated into a series of double entendres I don’t need to set down here, and ended up back in our shared room and a thoroughly disheveled bed.

But I had not forgotten Ginal’s request, so this morning I found some pretext to lead her to the thicket above Apkallu Falls, in the heart of Old Gridania. And there I proceeded to lay her down in the soft grass and have my evil way with her, with the sound of the Falls drifting over us, and with it the voices of Gridania’s unsuspecting citizens.

I had to admit it was wickedly exciting, seeing my love naked and panting in the leaf-dappled daylight, when all that screened us from discovery was a thin line of bushes. She was on the edge of climax, biting her hand to keep from screaming, when the bushes parted and a face looked through.

“That’s something you don’t see every day,” said the face. It was a female face, Roegadyn from the size of it. The woman stepped through the bushes into our little clearing and sat down. “I’ve been listening to you two for the past hour, and I finally decided that I had to see what kind of women could keep it up so long. And now I see that ‘keeping it up’ is not just a figure of speech.” She extended a large, slim hand with a carved silver ring on the index finger. “Pleased to meet you. My name is Silver Rose. I came up here to write, but I ended up doing research. Tell me, my dear — do you consider yourself a hermaphrodite, or what?”

My initial impulse — to tell our voyeur off for spying on us and, worse, for interrupting us at just that moment — collapsed in confusion when she mentioned her name.

“That Silver Rose?” I stammered. “The author of Legends of Eastern La Noscea, and The Costermonger’s Daughter, and Dragon-Mistress of Coerthas, and The Gentleman Pirate, and Gold or Honor, and…”

The blonde Roegadyn beamed. “I do believe I have found a fan.”

“She’s always reading your books,” Ginal grumbled as she pulled on her panties. “Half the time I can’t even drag her away from them for love-making. You have a lot to answer for, lady.”

“It’s true,” I admitted. “But your books were all that kept me sane during… during a difficult time in my life. I could escape the real world and live in your imagination. The Maiden Wanders gave me the strength to go on. I always knew the version the priests told us was a lie.”

I knew I was babbling, and I was painfully aware that I was still completely naked. Ginal pulled on her tunic and sighed, “Selah’s such a fan-girl.”

“I like having fans,” said Silver Rose. “So you know the original ‘Wandering Maiden’ ballad? You must be from Coerthas.”

“I grew up there, yes. Before the Calamity turned it into a hell of ice. It was a different world back then.”

“Indeed.” Silver Rose looked thoughtful. “Ladies, I would like to take you to lunch. First, because I owe you an apology for interrupting your amusement. But also because I have a proposition for you.”

“We don’t do threesomes,” Ginal stated, pulling on her boots.

“Not that kind of proposition, my dear. This is strictly business.” Silver Rose smiled at me, and my inner strength dissolved. “Dearheart, you’re quite lovely in the altogether, but I suggest you get dressed. Miounne is probably not ready to host naked luncheons.”