Four Dragons, Verse 4 (Patreon)

Verse 4, Wild Road Roving“Found another one,” announced Lykopis as she dragged the heavy, iron cage out from the underbrush.  She dumped it alongside the three others they had already uncovered in the last hour upon searching the area.  Her ears still partially rang from the mere memory of Oborro’s magical thunderclap earlier.  When she looked out across the camp from her companions and her eyes fell upon the now missing bridge that had spanned the gorge, she couldn’t deny a swelling of pride and amazement at his dazzling, if deafening maneuver.  Even as witness of the many bizarre, mystical things during her founding of and reign of her savage little kingdom, she could not help but be impressed.Magic was not a natural thing to the children of Or’Khan.  Whereas the other races wielded it as a weapon, shield, or tool, her kind, in all its varying subspecies, preferred a different method: the blood-rage.  Through ritualistic veneration of their ancestors or elemental spirits, the imbuing of runic tattoos, or communing with the primal forces of nature, Orcs could channel the Elder Spirits, transforming their minds and bodies to become ferocious berserkers.Even so, she had to admit that magic was indeed a force to be reckoned with, and the soft, delicate-bodied ones who commanded it were equally worthy of her respect.  Artemesia especially had, over the short amount of time they had traveled together, already performed equally as amazing displays of her magical power.  The woman was an utter mystery, so light and cheerful around the campfire but in battle a raging maelstrom.Oborro was something different.  She had known his powers as a Bard were a special case, and their first, chance meeting would always stick out in her mind.  He had impressed her, at a time when nothing and no one could claim to have done the same. Yet it was not only his skill with music mixed with magic, but also his daring, his bravado, his soft-eyed but firm-handed delivery at her demand in order to save a kingdom from her wrath.Everyday, seemingly, he reminded her of her one true love in the world, the thing that called to her even on the throne she had won through sweat, blood, and carnage: the Road.  Not booze, not battle, not even the thrill of the hunt could compare to the wide-reaching, ever mysterious nature of what might be just around the next bend of the river.Even before becoming a Queen, Lykopis the She-Wolf had been an adventurer.  There had never been another life for her, even from childhood.  She had met many amazing people, seen many miraculous things, both magical and mundane, and had thought the world could not surprise her further.  Oborro continued to prove her wrong, time and time again.Now if only it wasn’t for the way he looked at her almost constantly, most of the time when he thought she wasn’t aware.  She had had men staring at her all her life, and their gazes, whether reproachful, repugnant, rude, or even intrigued, were nothing new to her.  Men and women both gazed at her in equal parts mysterious allure and wary fear.Those born of Half-Orc ancestry like her walked a fine line between barely being seen as civilized by one half, and looked down upon as weak-blooded by the other.  She was used to stares, especially since she was as impressive a specimen as she knew was not often seen of her kind.  But even so, no one: not man, woman, Human, Orc, or otherwise, had ever looked at her like Oborro did.His eyes were the same as they had been the first time he played for her.  Eyes, one each of a different, shimmering color, which held such rapt adoration, fascination, wonder, and desire; all of it fixated solely for her.  Even as an oddity as she always had been, she was used to at least the last.  Those with more ‘open-minds’ deigned to label her as exotic.  She’d even known a few that were willing to pursue her.Not one of them, however, had desired her like Oborro seemed to.  Now if only he would do something about it, beyond their secretive trysts whenever they found time and freedom to indulge in such.  Did she even want him to want more, was the other question.Casting her gaze about and once again attempting to clean the ink-like ichor from her hands, Lykopis looked around their slowly establishing campsite.  They had made good time in setting up camp in the aftermath of their battle and subsequent near plunging to their deaths.  By her estimation, the storm was a good enough distance away and they would be sheltered somewhat by the mountains all around so that they might escape the worst of it.More Adventurers were killed by storms than by bandits when they forgot to account for them.  It was the unexpected that was so hard to prepare for, and she never had expected to be able to return to this life she hadn’t realized she missed so terribly.  The ultimate freedom of the road which the Bards sung of in so many epics and poems.  Life in her kingdom seemed as if worlds away; the stress of ruling, expectations, alterations to her mannerisms for the sake of diplomacy was like an unwelcome breeze that brushed past her and away.  Now if only she knew what to make of the actual Bard she was traveling with.She did not see him anywhere currently.  Artemesia was setting up her things to make dinner, and Ajax was still grumbling.  She inquired to them if they had seen their missing companion.“What?” called Ajax, looking over in her direction.  He wiggled a claw in one of his earholes.  “Speak up!”“Have you, seen, the Bard?” she enunciated.“Of course that fight didn’t seem that hard, what kind of Warrior Queen are you?” shot back the Draach.  He swelled his great, armor-clad chest at her, looking away from his work of setting up a tarp to block some of the approaching wind and rain.  The cave was not as deep as they might have liked, as they had all suspected, but they were all experienced adventurers and knew how to make the best of such a minor inconvenience as a mountain storm.“I said,” she started to growl out, then gave up, rolling her eyes.  Ajax had a weird sense of humor; pretending he couldn’t understand the Trade Tongue was just one of his usual, off the wall jests.  She turned instead to the Druid.  “Have you seen him?”Busy stirring their dinner, another hearty stew cooking in her little travel cauldron, Artemesia gestured with a hand vaguely in the direction of the trees further along the mountain road.  “He went that way or so.  Said he thought he saw something there right before the battle started.”Lykopis grinned down at her friend in thanks.  “I’ll go check on him.”“You do that,” remarked Artemesia.  As she stalked past, she could have sworn she saw the smaller woman flash her a knowing grin and a wink from those bright violet eyes.  It made her grumble deep inside at the implications she may or may not have been making with such a gesture as she stomped away.Finding Oborro was easy; her keen ears simply had to follow the soft, distant sound of his humming into the treeline a good hundred of feet away.  He was kneeling over somethin at the base of a tree, softly humming the refrain to one of his multitude of memorized melodies, but started when he heard her approaching.  Even as stealthy as she tried to be, something had to be said for the Half-Elf’s keen hearing; apparently the pointed ears weren't just for show.Sometimes she wondered if she was slipping; there once had been a time that she could creep into and back out of monster dens for fun, the sometimes even awake beasts being none the wiser.  Many castles, villages, and secret meeting places had she also snuck through when doing her own spywork.  She could count the number of times she’d been caught on one hand.Maybe Oborro was just that observant.  He did seem to constantly be looking over his shoulder after all.  Yet another fascinating little detail about him.His head whirled around to look at her and at once his gaze shone with that look.  His smile was wide, teeth bright, and the rakish strand of hair hanging over his scarred face made him look absolutely the image of Bardism itself.  “Ah, our resident, radiant Queen joins me!  Ah but the sun shines brighter at your arrival.” he chuckled.  His voice was still no worse for wear.Despite his seemingly mocking playful tone, she could not help but grin back down at him.  “The sun is setting, Bard.  Will that silver tongue of yours never grow tired of these false little flatteries?“ she teased.Oborro flung a hand to his breast as if struck. “Your Grace, you wound me!” he proclaimed in a dramatic voice.  “Never would I dream of speaking falsely of one so radiant as yourself.”  The twinkle in those eyes was almost maddening.“So it is flattery,” she parsed, cocking a scarred eyebrow down at him.“Is it flattery if it is the truth?”“The truth according to you.”“Perhaps so.”“You are very biased.”“Perhaps so again, but does it offend you?”“It takes a lot to offend me, Bard.”His gaze became, if anything, even more endeared and warmly fond as he gazed at the subject of his obvious infatuation.  “True.  I’d sooner dive off that cliff myself than ever risk offending your honor, and I’d meet any other with sword in hand if one dared to do so in my presence.”Lykopis chuckled; was it odd to find her own fondness in memories of him doing much the same at their first meeting?  She’d truly never met another like him.  It was a harder fight than many she could remember to keep the smirk from her lips.  “If memory serves, you’ve done as much before, unless you are wont to misremember.”Oborro’s cheeky grin matched her energy.  “What can I say, we Bards are suckers for classic scenes such as those.  Lends our performances the air of authenticity.”  He paused then.  "Also Alphonse is a jerk and I owe him at least three times as many humiliations for us to be even."Memories of the duel against the nobleman still made her grin, although she tempered it with another, equally fiery emotion; the sting of regret and loss were strong enough even to combat her ease around the Bard.  “I like when you get feisty...Even so, I’m not the type of woman who needs knightly Gallant to come to my rescue.”“I’d sooner cast myself upon the flames than ever imagine I was your rescuer,” he countered easily.  “But to allow such vile words as his to go unchallenged, it would have been the end of my decency as a gentleman.”Similar words from her past made her scowl.  “I was gracious to forgive it once, so consider what I said and did that day a warning.  I imagine it’d be hard to sing and charm if I were to crush your head with my thighs.”He shrugged innocently.  “Ah, such a tease.”A snort came from her before she could stop it, coupled with one of those utterly hated little squeaks she couldn’t help from slipping whenever she was truly amused.  Would he ever not surprise her?  She glared at him anew, now more for his smirking at hearing it.  “I still might,” she only half-warned.“Then I shall rest in my bedroll tonight, content in the knowledge that my preferred death is still a possibility.”Rolling her eyes, the Half-Orc’s amusement broke through her now only faeu-stern expression.  “Probably wouldn’t be that hard,” she grunted.  “Head like yours would crack like an eggshell.”His cocky grin up at her set her animal instincts to growling for reasons she didn’t quite understand.  “Who knows?  I’m a lot tougher than people give me credit for.”Sighing, knowing that wordplay was an arena where he truly was the master and she only an apprentice, she conceded.  It was after all only recently she had even partially overcome her normal disdain for prolonged social interaction.  Strangely, she had to believe he was partially to blame, or was it thank, for that.“You are at that, I’ll grant.  How are you not at least exhausted after earlier?  Or even hoarse?”“I’m capable of a lot of things people don’t expect,” he led with, probably trying to sound mysterious.  “And if I couldn’t hold a simple high-note infused with magical power, what kind of Bard would I be?”She rolled her yellow on black eyes down at him, crossing her arms over her hide chestpiece, making the armor of her mismatched shoulder pauldrons and gauntlets clatter.  “Point taken, Master Othello,” she mocked right back at him.His smile broadened and she felt her own growing too, displaying more of her sharp teeth and prominent lower tusks.  Even for a Half-Orc, her teeth at least had always gotten her respect from her fellow younglings, all those long ago days of her almost forgotten childhood.  Back before the cold, the rage, and the road.  It was nice that someone else seemed to like her smile just for it being there.“So what are you looking at?” she implored, turning the conversation back to the present.  “Camp is almost set up.  We’ve found four cages so far.”Rising from his limber crouch, Oborro gestured at last at what he had been studying.  Her eyes clapped onto a man, a Human adult male, laying in a bizarre position, against the tree.  It was obvious he had been dead for only a short time, even from the first glance.His head and neck were at a severe angle as opposed to the plane of his shoulders, meaning he had fallen from somewhere high enough to account for the injury.  Her huntress eyes glanced up the tree in question, where she spotted a likely position he must have taken.  Turning back and peering closely, she had a clear line of sight to where the bridge and battle had been.“Who do you think he is?” she asked, turning back to the Bard and the body.“Originally, my thought was some unfortunate trapper given the rough pelts and hides he is wearing, but then I looked closer,” noted Oborro, sounding fairly satisfied at his investigative findings.  She humored him as he continued.  “The material his clothing is made of starkly resembles the hides of those miserable little creatures we fought.  You can still see claws and teeth worked into it as decoration.  Then there was also that.”  His eyebrows and eyes both flicked up.Trailing her gaze back up the tree, she saw what he meant after only a second or two.  A heavy crossbow, linked over a pair of smaller branches near to where the man must have taken his roost.“I suspect he might have been a Ranger or Beast Tamer of some kind,” Oborro concluded.“In command of the Pyrelings?” she ventured a guess, to which Oborro of course nodded.“I would imagine so.  The first cage we found tipped me off that these were no naturally occurring swarms; they were prepared and set up here to ambush someone, or someones, in particular.  A good tactic against less experienced or capable fighters; these things are frighteningly annoying to kill for even skilled adventurers on their own.  Numbers like those could drain an entire herd of cattle.”She nodded along, tapping her armored finger against the dark-gray swell of her powerful bicep.  The weight of his eyes upon her formidable, scarred frame was easier to ignore as she kept her mind focused.  “Good observations.  Any idea who the target or targets might have been?”  She had her suspicions already.“Indeed I do,” Oborro proclaimed, also seemingly deciding to stay professional for now, and he whipped out a sheet of leather inscribed with ink from his doublet.  He offered it to Lykopis as a servant might have, which she took, graciously, with only a small snort of amusement.She’d always hated deference and the like that had cropped up seemingly overnight after becoming queen; from him, however, it felt more playful than subservient.  Even if he did look good down there.The thought crept through her completely silent up until that point, finally rearing its head and hissing its soft, subtle words like the very rasp of Deth-Addan Apophis itself.  She hurriedly dismissed such admittedly pleasing images, lest her face given away her inner thoughts just now.  A quick, glowering glance at his face left her unsure if he had noticed or not; he had a disturbingly accurate read on people sometimes, even if he was also at the best of times quite air-headed.Her fierce eyes scanned the foreign letters and runes, but she knew the language they were penned in.  Familiar if slightly off-base caricatures of four figures were inked into the tanned hide as well.  “Another assassin,” she spat.  The symbol on the bottom of the notice was the same as the others they’d run into.Oborro hummed in agreement.  “Someone certainly didn’t like us looking into that old ritual site, and frankly, I doubt Lord Moiremark has the balls to hire hitmen himself, even after we burned down his villa,” he noted dismissively, as if they had not just survived yet another failed attempt on their lives at the behest of some mysterious, ominous other party.“Hey, that was an accident,” she protested in a mock-offended tone, finding it easier than she might have only a short span of months prior to meeting him.  In that time since gaining her trust and their decision to work together in pursuit of the mysterious symbols cropping up everywhere, Lykopis had found that the Bard was not only a skilled companion, but also fun and easy to joke around with.  "And Ajax started the fire anyway."On top of their unorthodox past and good working relationship as fellow adventurers, she couldn’t remember any of her various companions over the years being as much fun as he was, if also unpredictable, mysterious, evasive about his past, and generally an oddity even at the best of times.  Even so, friends like Oborro were rare indeed.“Well, accident or not, I still doubt it was him.  As to the real cause, honestly I don’t put too much of my mind into worrying over it.  This many rogues being sent after us only makes our legends grow every day that we live to tell the tale.”Her eyes hardened then.  “This isn’t just a story that you’re telling in a tavern, Bard,” she chastised him as gently as she could.  The boiling anger and ferocity inside of her, stoked at the sight of that same symbol, was already roused.  “This is the road, and out here, even adventurers die just as easily as this man did.  We might have been overwhelmed by the Pyrelings if we hadn’t been alerted by Artemesia.”Oborro’s shimmering eyes fell upon hers again, and as ever, at such close range, she felt an almost spell-binding effect within them.  She wondered sometimes if he were laying a spell upon her when they locked eyes like this, but she knew that he would never stoop so low.  He had her attention a lot easier than that and had no need for such tricks.  Even so, it was unsettling looking so deeply, so intimately into the eyes of anyone anymore, especially those alternatively colored orbs.  They held emotions that she had long ago discounted as frivolous or too painful to bear.“A fate I’m well aware awaits us should we relax our guard,” he intoned softly.  Then a crinkling smile spoiled the effect of his gaze, making him look boyish again.  “But I don’t know a story in the world where the beautiful, barbaric Mad Queen of Rende would be felled by such insignificant beings.  A flight of dragons might assail us and I know, if any of us would walk away triumphant, it would be you.”Heat bloomed in her dark cheeks beneath her white tribal tattoos.  Lykopis swiftly turned around, growling softly in her throat.  He always knew how to surprise her with such comments, going beyond the playful flattery like before just when she least expected it.  He might have been the only person who could call her barbaric without her having the urge to throttle him.A very different kind of throttling did come to mind.  Again, she swiped away the thought before it could become more than mere mental images.Focus, woman.The word, barbarian, had always been a sore spot for her; a label bandied about by fellow nobles to disparage all her hard work to gain a position of status. From those pompous stuffed shirts, it was as obvious an insult as an Orc calling her ‘short tusk’, but from him, it felt much more…that word.  Even trying not to think of said word had her blood boiling for multiple reasons.Never again.“Bring the note and come back to camp,” she muttered over her broad shoulder at him.  “We need to discuss tactics going forward before we get into the mountains proper.  I don’t know this stretch, but I’ve a good idea what lives here.  It’ll be at least three days before we reach the fort Ajax remembers being stationed at, so we need to be well rested and prepared for whatever comes our way.”“Ah, yes,” sighed Oborro behind her.She heard him following after her on soft-toed strides of his boots and she made quick to march on ahead of him.  She didn’t want him to see her face just then; it wasn’t within a barbarian queen’s image to be seen blushing at a Bard’s honeyed words.  Then again, he wasn’t just any Bard.“Another tactical meeting based around the inconsistent memories of a walking, talking, fire-breathing armory.”  She heard the humor in his voice and, despite her being flustered for a moment, she couldn’t help but grin as well.“Maybe you’ll turn this one into a song too?” she offered, confident and at ease enough to wink back at him.  She immediately caught his eyes, having been watching her posterior sway beneath her armored skirts as she walked.  Upon being caught, he quickly looked away from as if he never had been doing so.  That helped soothe her burning cheeks and her grin grew.  Maybe he wasn’t too unlike every other Man in the world yet.“Perhaps,” Oborro drawled as they came back in direct sight of their other two companions.  She paused, doing one more security check around with her eyes, and Oborro brushed past her.  “I’d rather sing stories about someone else,” she heard him murmur in such low tones that anyone else might have not heard him.  And he knew that.Assassins or no, Pyrelings or not, the road was the road.  Lykopis was glad to be back on it, and no finer crew would or could have been wished for as they all settled in around the fire.  bowls of deliciously made herbal stew in hand, they plotted their next move.  More than once her gaze wandered again to the Bard during the tactical phase of their downtime, sharing stories, songs, and snide, if harmless jokes at one another's expense.  Even through the interspersed jests, bickering, and smiles shared amongst their unorthodox little found-family, she found him matching her eyes every time.  Now if only he would do something about it.Then again, Lykopis had never been the type of woman to sit idly when something she also wanted was within reach.  The sheer weight of his lingering, hungry, yet shy gaze reminded her of their first encounter, how one Bard’s song could save a city, and the celebrations that followed after.  Five years without, and now she could not get enough; not of partners in general, but of him.  So, when Oborro at last got up to answer the call of nature, she waited until he was nearly out of sight and then excused herself as well.Artemesia traded a look with her as she stalked off into the woods, the Druid woman smirking with way too much satisfaction in correctly, if unknown to her as of yet, assuming what the Half-Orc’s plans were.  She deliberately made sure to walk off in a different direction than Oborro had taken to alleviate suspicions, then doubled back under the cover of darkness when fully out of sight of the camp.Stealth was analogous to her as breathing and fighting, her powerful frame making little to no noise as she prowled deeper into the woods.  Then again, she had learned such skills as necessity rather than through desire or teaching.  When one spent months as a child, being chased by nightmarish, undying beasts through the perpetually frozen hellscape known as the Wight Woods, stealth became instinct.She heard him before she saw him, the staccato of silvery strings singing beneath his slender fingers.  Pausing behind a tree, she peered out from around it in the direction of the music.  Sure enough, there he was, seated on a fallen tree in the middle of a small forest glen.  His back was to her, long-handled lute in his hands as he strummed a soft, gentle melody.  Maybe even the same one he had been humming earlier.So engrossed was he in his strumming that Lykopis was able to creep up upon him until she was nearly within arm’s reach.  Only at the last second did he stiffen, long ears quivering, fingers stuttering to a halt on his instrument, but not in time before she had taken a firm, if gentle, grip on his ponytail and jerked him backwards off his seat.  Catching him with ease, she held him there, halfway off the fallen tree, gazing down at him cheekily, amused by his surprised expression.“Well, look at that, I can sneak up on you after all,” she teased.Still startled, Oborro stared up at her.  His heterochromatic eyes gleamed, wide, sparkling, and deep as pools of twilight.  His skin nearly seemed to shine like silver in the moonlight streaming from above, fair features frozen as their gazes remained locked.Her smile broadened, sharp teeth gleaming as she cocked her head to the side.  “Pretty tune,” she commented, nodding at his lute which he had managed to hold onto even in his surprise.  “Haven’t heard that one before.”“It’s a work in progress,” he replied, sounding unsure.  He tried to adjust his seat but she instead just scooped him up off the tree entirely.  He hung there in her arms, slender frame near trembling against her.  She felt him squirm slightly, causing her to tighten her grip around him.  When he at last seemed to realize he was not going anywhere, he finally seemed to relax.  A playful twinkle returned to his gaze.  “Careful, your Grace.  I might become used to being carried like this.”Chuckling deep in her throat, Lykopis shifted, turning slowly and then sank down to sit against the tree.  Plucking his lute from his hands, she laid it gently off to the side.  Her rough thumb ran up along his fair cheek, then traced down along it to his throat.  His high-collared vest covered everything below his chin, but a simple brushing aside of the silken, exotic material revealed the mark she knew would still be there.  She pursed her lips, admiring the dark little blotch on his otherwise pearly skin.“Looks like my claim is starting to fade,” she commented.  Yellow eyes gleamed in the early night hours, predatorial and hungry down at the little rabbit in her clutches.  Beneath her rough thumb, she could feel his heart racing faster, his body stiffening up a bit more as she curled him into her chest.  She had removed much of her armor back at the campsite during dinner, leaving her in just her leather breastplate and leggings.  His eyes raked over her powerful limbs and scarred body as voraciously now as he had done then.  “I almost wish you wouldn’t wear your collar up so high.”Oborro shivered even more as she traced the mark, his eyes fluttering slightly before as her touch pressed in, gentle but firm, against his pulse point.  With the look of man pulling himself up a steep precipice, he finally seemed to steel himself.  “You are a cruel woman, Lykopis.”“Hmm?” the Barbarian Queen hummed, settling him fully onto her lap and continuing to trace the line of his throat.  “Tell me how cruel the ‘Mad Queen’ is.”His eyes again fluttered near closing for a second at her voice and touch but somehow he managed to steel his resolve enough to resist her, for now.  “Cruel, that any woman…could torment a man so, knowing he is utterly in her power with but a word to reduce him to a shivering wreck such as I am now.  That she should then torment him about openly flaunting her claim over him.”“Oh, but my little Bard does so love how I torment him, or at least, that’s what he tells me.”Brows furrowing, Oborro actually managed to overcome the soporific effect she had upon him.  “I’ve never…” he started to say.Interrupting him was as easy as a shift of one of her powerful hands, sliding down along his vestments to his waist where it lingered, applying pressure just above where she knew he was secretly yearning for her to touch.  Men were rather easy creatures, but she would never have described Oborro as such.  He had a resolve like no man she had ever met, coupled with a gentleness that was so alien to her, and a lust, or even love, for life that rivaled, perhaps even dwarfed, her own.  The difference was how he chose to see the world, even after all of the darkness he had been exposed to, not quite equal but no lesser than her own painful memories.  But where she had grown bitter and angry at the world, he never failed to smile, to laugh, to play his music, and to be kind as if that were truly all that were needed to change the world.  He had certainly changed hers.“He would strongly disagree,” she growled, flexing her grip upon his hip meaningfully. It caused him to take a deep breath in, releasing it only as she too released the pressure on him.  “I thought honesty was a hallmark of yours?”“I have always…been honest with you,” he breathed shakily.  Her hands roamed his frame now, watching his fingers curl and savoring each tremble her touch elicited from him.“Well your body certainly is.”  Her roaming fingers caught at the hem of his vest and then wormed their way inside, hungry to touch more of his pale, soft, supple skin.  She caught his eyes meaningfully as she worked on carefully undoing the strange material he wore.He caught her hand then just as she finished undoing the last of his vest’s ties, exposing a long line of his chest to his abdomen.  She paused then, letting him hold onto her wrist, allowing him to decide.  Huntress yellow eyes stared straight into his purple and black orbs.  Never before had she seen a man as beautiful as he was, nor a more intimidatingly intimate light as what shone from his gaze.  It almost frightened her, causing her to try and pull her hand away on reflex.  Oborro did not let her.Guiding her hand forward instead, he placed her palm flat against his exposed chest.  Both of them inhaled as they felt the direct warmth of one another’s flesh, a feeling Lykopis had firmly sworn to never indulge so wantonly again, a warmth she suddenly could no longer go without.  She had forced herself to learn restraint, lest her heart be broken again; it was easier to close herself off from the world, isolate herself in the winterscape of her loneliness.  But even there, she felt him now.The Bard’s vest slid off of him fully, neither of them sure which was the one who did the majority of the work.  Now shirtless in her arms, Oborro seemed to finally steel himself enough to reach up and return her ardent, hungry touches.  A growl bubbled up in her throat as his eager fingers worked their way into the clasps of her breastplate, undoing it with ease, sliding it off and away from her.  His eyes gleamed even more than before as he beheld her her buxom, muscular Orcish glory.Their passions now fully enflamed, it took no time at all to remove the rest of their clothing, somehow managing it whilst still with him in her arms.  Only when the last scrap of her chest wraps had been piled off to the side did she pull him up fully against her whilst still in her lap.  Lykopis clutched at the Bard, skin to skin, feeling his slender body trembling against her as they used their body heat to stave off the winds of the oncoming storm.  Their breath was unsteady and panting, and they had not even begun.  Hands traced and slid along one another, gripping, caressing, grasping, stroking.Small tugs and motions had them moving seemingly without thought, instinct guiding the way as they flipped positions.  Oborro’s back pushed flush up against the fallen tree behind him as she slid easily, powerfully, up atop of him.  Their sizes were so different from first glance, him all but vanishing beneath her, but that only made it all the more exhilarating.  Especially when she reached down to feel a part of him that easily bridged that gap, guiding him in, sealing them together.  Two entirely different worlds, brought together by the most natural of connections.The rush of pleasure coursing through her made the Half-Orc throw her head back and snarl.  Beneath her, she felt Oborro’s surprisingly wiry frame flex and strain up against her weight, his arms winding around her hips.  Glancing back down and combing one hand back through her dark tresses, she gazed hungrily, fondly, down at the already panting Half-Elf beneath her.A deep satisfaction overtook the Queen of Rende to see the irrepressibly-gregarious Bard rendered speechless.  It almost made her loathe to disturb that singular perfect moment, but her inner beast could not be denied.  She began to move, undulating her hips expertly, keeping their bodies pushed flush against one another as if dancing to the beat of their internal rhythm.  Oborro clung to her all the harder as she did, the sounds he made soft but ringing in her ears all the same.  That, to her, was music, but she liked his version too occasionally.“So nice to hear,” she growled, panting between every odd word or so in cadence to her thrusting, swaying hips.  “That voice of yours, like this again.  Bards talk far too much with their tongues.”“Lykopis…” he moaned up at her, clutching to her all the more tightly as if he could ever have possibly squeezed her too tight.  His frail arms squeezed around her broad hips, pale skin such a lovely contrast to her stone-grey hide.  He had no scars other than the silvery one often barely visible beneath his artistically or even purposefully styled hair; she had scars the world over, brutal, savage, every one a trophy of a battle.  She often caught him playing with them when not otherwise bewitched by her other, no less bewitching charms.  It was adorable, really, and she loved every second, every touch.“Yes…my little Bard,” panted the Orcish Queen.  “You sing so beautifully like this…a private performance, all to myself.”  Her hands lifted and planted themselves against the fallen log, blunt nails digging into the rotten bark for a more steady grip.  Her whole body flexed above and around him, harsh plains of muscle tightening and bulging more.  The groan from her Oborro as well as the appreciative swell inside of her made her feel truly beautiful.  “Let’s see if I can make you sing a bit louder…”True to her word, Lykopis intensified her pace down atop of him, bouncing more ferociously and fluidly now.  What had been a burning ember inside of her now became a raging wildfire; her heartbeat, previously a pleasant pulsing rhythm now pounded like the drums of an Orc warband.  It surged through her veins as it had not done so in years, making her blood sing and her inner beast come more fully awake.Everytime with him was like the first and yet as if they had been together for centuries.  She memorized every facet of her little lover, every slope, plain, divot, arch, and line of him.  Their union was as coming home to her, a home even as grand as her castle in Rende paled to in comparison.  Every thrust unmade and remade her in that moment, every moan she urged forth from his lips sweeter than any warsong, and every time she made him cry out her name more satisfying than the victorious cheers of an Orc army thousands-strong.Mine, she rumbled deep inside her mind.  To the Beast, to the Cold, and the White, to a world hellbent on denying her any such joy or happiness in the past, she snarled in joy and rage in equal measure.  Mine.  You won't have him.  Won't take him.  Not mobs, not armies, not Dragons, not Pyrelings and Assassins.Lykopis' rapture for her Bard drew forth even further depths of her savage nature.  At times, she worried she might crush  him, hurt him, bite too deep or grip too hard.  And then there were others, like now, when even as she tried to rein in her inner beast, she felt him cling all the more to her."Mine..." he let out in a gasp, trying to match her pace somehow up even as she brutally continued down upon him.She could feel his grip on her tightening, his hands weaving themselves around as much of her body as he could reach.  He held onto her as desperately as if clinging to flotsam in a raging storm, a singular solitary lifeline amidst the tempest that was their lovemaking.  He tried to muffle himself in her chest, making her chuckle as his flushed, pale-skinned face all but vanished there, save for his unruly head of blonde hair.Weaving one strong hand into it, Lykopis took hold of the back of his skull and bent him slowly back, extricating him from her sweaty, bountiful cleavage.  He let out a pitiful whining sound which climbed yet higher octaves as she clenched around him and moved even more insistently, urging him along with the undulations of her hips.  With his back up against the bark, her hand moved from his skull to his throat, wrapping around nearly all of that slender neck without even needing to stretch her fingers.  A little light pressure and his singing moans became raspy and strained, eyes locked onto her as she indulged in her greatest gift."Ly...ko..." he struggled to gasp out, hands gripping her surging hips.  Was he trying to stop her from moving or pulling her along in an incentive to move faster?Leaning down, her long black hair fell all about their faces as she breathed against the length of one of his long ears.  "Beg for me..." she growled, tusks sliding along the promise-plate stamped into his earlobe.  A single twist of her neck and she had caught it, pre-drilled holes fitted perfectly to her tusks; there could be no better grip in the world.  Like this, bowed over him, she had to adjust her pace, lowering her hand from his throat and instead cupping the entire opposite side of his face.  "Beg, little Bard...""I...won't..." he gasped, giving out a great growl of his own as he had no doubt been working on building himself up that precipice.  She could feel his Bardic instrument desperate inside of her.  "I won't...entertain...your power fantasies..."Her throaty chuckle right into his ear made his entire body shudder violently.  "Not even for me...?" she teased.  "Not even...if I was giving you power?"  She slowed her pace even more, long, plunging drops of her hips onto him that nearly had him exiting her scabbard up until the very last inch before she dove back onto his blade again.  His hands grabbed for her ass but he could no more move her when she did not wish it than she could have imagined life without him.  "Beg, Bard..." she tugged on his ear slightly harder with her teeth.  "And I'll let you do that thing you keep asking about..."He went stiff, or rather stiffer, beneath her.  She chuckled again.  "I..." he panted, momentarily stunned into indecision. "One little please...and you'll be able to make the ultimate punchline to all those Bard jokes they make about me."  Her grin spread wider, now she knew she had him.  "You'll be the only Bard in all Talamh to say 'I mounted the Wolf'.""The...only Bard?" he asked, voice breathy.Her teeth left his plate, allowing him a momentary reprieve of her love-tugging before her tongue enveloped his earlobe, nibbling on it roughly.  An Elf's ears were oh so very sensitive.  "The only man who ever will again."Her oratory onslaught did the trick.  His arms crushed her bulk against him possessively.  His mouth opened beside her cheek, his breath warming her face.  She could physically watch his walls come crumbling down, and it melted the ice inside of her if there could even be any left from the joy she had fallen into around him.  He took a deep shaky breath in.Lykopis abruptly paused, slowly her pace to a complete stop and with only the tiniest tremor that only he would ever be able to see, she rose from atop his hips.  His sweaty, pale form lay there agianst the trunk, panting heavily, staring up at her in surprise."I was about to~!" he started to object, then again, she reveled in the victory of making him go speechless at what she did next.She sprawled herself over the fallen tree he had been leaning up against, draping her powerful form atop the old bark.  Even for her size, she was a bit off-balance, using her strong hands to stabilize herself as she glanced over her shoulder at him meaningfully.  "I know," she breathed.  Then her wolf eyes gleamed, deep amber-yellow glinting in the starlight and she took a more solid stance with her legs, making her posterior rise just a fraction more.  A silent offer, a command, the reality.Oborro was on her in a flash of long limbs.  Barely a second between his rising from the ground and his climbing up atop her like some demented hormone-driven squirrel could have existed.  The feeling had her laughing until his slender thighs framed her ass and he sank back into her and she trailed off into a throaty gasp and growl of pleasure.  "Look at you~!" she grunted back at him as he wasted no time in resuming their frantic pace, only now with him in charge instead.  "Maybe there's a bit of a beast to my Bard as well!"He panted behind and atop of her, having to plant his feet awkwardly as he pretty much was forced to straddle her rear.  Even so, he went at her like an animal in heat, his hands holding onto her hips so hard she could feel her skin divoting around his iron-hard grip.  The sensations were exactly what she wanted; he went even deeper like this and he wasn't put off at all by their adjustments due to size differences.His claiming of her, primal, animalistic, utterly Orcish, did not last long, but she didn't need it to.  Like him, she had been more than nearly there when she climbed up off of her favorite seat.  Like him, to have been forced to wait any longer for their coupling to reach its climatic finish would have been torture.  Neither had possessed much in the way of true rapture or joy in their lives before they met one another.  Mere months ago, and yet it seemed a lifetime."You sure...?" she growled huskily, fingers furrowing into the earth and her muscles going taut as she raced towards her own release.  "You were...a virgin...before me?!""Only.  Ever.  You!" he let out a great exhalation, driving in as deep as he could as they hurtled over the edge together.  Great shudders wracked the pair of them, their bodies covered in a sheen of sweat, their heads of hair, black and gold, disheveled and tangled.  A slight weight descended upon her naked back and she grinned as she felt Oborro's breath against the back of her neck.  He barely came up to her shoulder blades like this.  It was perfect.  He was perfect.Sliding off her and down, the two of them huddled against the fallen tree, him once again safely nestled in her arms as the two exhausted lovers traded kisses, soft touches, and loving gleams in their eyes.  Directly overhead, the twin stars of the Two Great Lovers twinkled brighter than before, shining their light down upon the pair that was their newest living incarnation, a love story as old as time.Eventually they did rise, helping dress one another out of a fondness and a hidden wish to feel one another's skin beneath their hands as much as possible before they must return to the company of their friends.  There was no hiding what they'd done, but that didn't mean they didn't try to at least pretend.  Neither was ready to come out and openly tell Artemesia and Ajax the truth behind their relationship.The Draach would only scoff and claim the superiority of the scaled-skinned species as being unhindered by the passions of the floppy, fleshy Mammalians.The Druid would jokingly ask if she could join in next time, or perhaps even watch.  "I've been hard-up for I don't know how many years without my husband," she would playfully whine when both Lykopis and Oborro turned her down.  "The least you can do is let me watch!"They would all laugh, and joke, and as the campfire burned down to embers and the winds of the storm truly began to blow and gust, all retire to their bedrolls.  Oborro snuggled into Lykopis' strong arms inside of the one they shared, humming a love song even in his sleep as he rested his darling face atop the pillows of her chest.  Lykopis meanwhile looked up at the stars, wheeling overhead outside of the cave in-between the dark clouds.Father, I found him, she thought to herself, pressing a kiss against her Bard's forehead.  You were right after all, not that I'd ever say so to your face.Deep thunder boomed across the mountains, all too similar to a great, rolling laugh she to this day could not help but treasure.  Alreigch had laughed just like that when he told a much younger Lykopis that one day she would find her a gentle soul to calm her wild one.  "A peace to your fury.  A calm to your storm.  The song to match yours, as the new Age begins to dawn."Screw you old man... she grinned against Oborro's soft hair.  Her eyes drifted closed and she held her Bard all the tighter.  Her wild road roving had finally brought her home.