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Lae'zel jolts awake to the scent of melted cheese and sizzling fat. Any other morning, it would please her to know Gale is feeling well enough to have breakfast ready so early. But this means he's well rested after their — what was assumed to be night in the Shadow-Cursed Lands — reveling in one another's bodies, and that would not do.
She stretches to survey the familiar ache that comes with copulating and quickly realizes that there is none. Not only is she somehow in her own tent, her skin appears unmarred, muscles relaxed, and feels rested.
She'd never let a partner get away with so much, take so many liberties with her body, without besting her in combat first. But with the orb stabilized and their general lack of patience — well, her lack of patience — she'd agreed to whatever kept him on this plane and touching her body.
But it hadn't been her body, had it? Nor on this plane. Illusions. Again. Lae'zel curses and notes that her tent has no signs that Gale had even been here. Curses again when she does not even have to dress before leaving her tent because she's still clothed.
Gale has the audacity to hum. Hunched over a fire blackened skillet. Agitating thinly sliced potatoes covered in cheese. Scalloped. Her mind plucks the word from a memory where she'd had her curiosity sated by Gale who, at the time, she'd only referred to as wizard.
Even in this terrible lighting, it's obvious his skin is free of the marks her teeth would have left if she'd truly lain with him. Something in her belly feels hot and rotting as she observes the curves and angles of his face. Lines appear at the corners of his eyes as his fleshy cheeks raise with his smile. The bulbous tip of his large nose. Tsk'va. Is she incapable of drawing upon the disgust she once felt for his appearance? Parts of him she'd thought were pulpy were now… succulent.
"Good shadowy morning, Lae'zel." She can't take her eyes off his hands as they set aside the skillet and retrieve a prepared plate. One with sausage and potatoes with a small block of cheese off to the side. "I hope you slept well, my dear."
She ignores his sentiment, focused only on the altered version of the breakfast he's made and proffered into her waiting hands. "Why is this one different?"
His smile doesn't wane when he says, with an infuriating confidence, "You don't like melted cheese." Then brushes his lips against her cheek.
Her face heats and he obviously mistakes it as something more affectionate than the fury that it is as he grins. This male has been attentive enough to know her eating habits but cannot sense her anger in the moment.
She fists a hand in his tunic and her mouth brutalizes his own. Harsh and sharp as her tongue lashes over his, teeth dig into his bottom lip, yet he doesn't fight her. He's soft and molds around the claiming even as she tastes the metallic tang and his gasp before releasing him with a relatively gentle shove.
He's at least perceptive enough to follow her back to her tent.
"I wanted to talk to you about our night together." He's still smirking even as he ducks into the tent, his thumb brushing over his bleeding lip before licking it clean.
Lae'zel gives a short grunt and jut of her chin signaling for him to continue, setting her breakfast down on her bedroll so she can cross her arms over her chest.
He talks of cliff faces and his goddess's demand that he sacrifice himself and how Lae'zel did so much.
It had been an illusion: her participation, her thoughts, her feelings.
"I hope our night meant as much to you as it did to me. And that we'll have more time together… alone."
The dead thing in her belly unfurls, completely falling apart as it spreads through her guts at his desperate plea. There's the passing thought that this same feeling was buried beneath her arousal when he admitted he was in love with her last night. When he pulled her to pieces. Obsessed over every part. Observed all of her and pleased even sides of herself she's hidden. When there had been so much, so many, of him to work with so little of her.
"It was fine."
The change in him is immediate. She hasn't seen that look in his eye directed at her since she'd last called him k'chakhi. The fire he's holding back in his words sets her ablaze. She unfolds her arms and invades his space as he finishes his little rant.
"The weather scars the land, rulers their people, and paintings the observer. Today I woke from the illusion of your touch," she pinches his bottom lip between her thumb and index finger. He doesn't wince the way she expects him to when he begins to bleed for her again. His brow is turned down and his sigh sounds more like a growl. "And in humoring you, I was cheated."
Gale has no idea where he'd gotten the idea that once the orb was stabilized it would be smooth sailing with his githyanki paramour. The bliss of the morning (after his first orgasm in over a year) was ruined as he was righted back into reality by her callused hands.
He, Lae'zel, Wyll, and Shadowheart are trekking back to He Who Was with the journal, and Gale can only feign indifference to cover offense (that's thinly veiling shame) for so long. It's baffling, really, that he managed to disappoint someone who's been trying to bed him since the first tenday they met. Someone with whom he'd melded, body and soul. Someone from whom he thought he'd felt a surprising depth of affection.
There's a cracking sound and, before the rest of his band can even look up, Gale is casting Telekinesis to toss the rotted tree overhead and on the opposite side of their path.
"Thank you for that."
"Well done!" Shadowheart and Wyll praise him before continuing their trek. Lae'zel slows until she's nearly shoulder to shoulder with him.
"You should accept my proposal to battle tonight. I'd like to continue telling you how arousing I find your prowess."
Gale is a weak man.
It's that same weakness that got him in this position just outside of camp with two halves of a quarterstaff in either hand.
When the fight started he'd merely dodged and blocked her blows. It did nothing short of infuriate his lover. She'd advanced and he'd had to start casting but, after the encounter with He Who Was, Gale found himself severely lacking in his energy and ability to fend her off with weakened cantrips. Which led to more blocking and him now gripping the quarterstaff halves like a lifeline.
If he doesn't win, where does that leave them? Will she consider him too weak to love? Move on to another more willing to speak this violent language she craves.
Just once, it would be nice to have someone accept the love he has to give.
Gale agreed to her terms. He agreed to earn her submission and then did everything in his power to avoid harming her.
The one time he got a hand on her armor he shocked her and she hardly felt it. She's seen him fry goblins alive with the very same spell.
She should be irate but seeing him on his knees before her, bruised, head bowed as his back heaves with his breath has her losing the fire of the fight.
Tsk'va.
"I don't want to hurt you."
Words that sound better fit for Gale's mouth leave her own. The thud of her sword hits the dirt and draws his watery gaze, bolstering her.
"I want to protect you."
She pries the remnants of his weapon from his hands and takes hold of his wrists, tugging him to her.
"I didn't do as you asked."
"No, you did not."
Her fingers trail over the bruise beneath his eye, something she should be reveling in. Her mark left on him in her passion, her dedication to her customs, and yet her insides feel twisted and as raw as the swelling on his flesh.
"My people do not measure strength in what is held back. But I find myself straying further from what I thought I knew as each day passes."
"I don't wish to harm you either, Lae'zel."
"That is obvious."
His tongue passes over the swell of his bottom lip before the edge curls up. "I thought you might be a bit less receptive to that information, if I'm honest."
"Did I appear receptive at the start of combat, when all you did was dodge?"
Gale tilts his head, leaning his bruising cheek further against her palm with a pained yet affectionate smile.
"Point taken. You warmed up to the idea, then."
"I did. We shall treat your wounds. Our night will not end with only you having felt my touch." She starts them on the trek back to camp. "I assume you know how to leave a mark on your partner when out of the astral, yes?"
The glimmer in his eyes is the same as hers, she realizes. The heated gleam of someone who's been issued a challenge they know they will dominate. It's the look she had wanted when their fight began. The fact that this look can still exist when he gazes at her — only with the promise of pleasure instead of pain — she's stirring from only the glance.
"Lae'zel, what I would have given for you to start the night with that."
He makes the attempt to lift her into his arms but flinches and agrees that they should tend to his wounds first.
The way she's gentled toward him is more than he dared to imagine. He'd offered to go on his own to visit Shadowheart but Lae'zel steered him to her tent with only a grunt. She instructed him to sit on her bedroll and his breath caught in his throat when she sat astride his lap while she applied poultices and gave him a potion from her personal stock.
Her strong hands follow the curves of his face. "I am now zhak vo'n'ash duj to you."
Gale's hands move over the leather trousers stretched across her thighs like a second skin. He thought he'd been grateful she hadn't insisted on donning her usual armor earlier when he resorted to using Shocking Grasp but now he's appreciating it for far more obvious reasons.
"If that means my love then you read my mind."
"It is a term of respect and admiration that is… singular. It translates to: source of my bruises."
Bruises? Well, she is right about that. Gale considers making a quip about how they would need to be mindful of who they translate that for if anyone were to ever ask but the humor fades when he opens his eyes to see her looking at him so… sweetly.
"Singular, you say?" He caresses her lithe form, his hands lapping like the tide against her delicate curves. Finding their place as he covers her.
"I know your true strength. Anything else that manages to mar your flesh will meet the end of my blade. Though I no longer have a desire to mark you as I have tonight."
"While my face is appreciative I'm sure we can come up with some sort of compromise, zhak vo'n'ash duj."
Lae'zel's chest thunders like a war drum when Gale's voice repeats the title. She cannot call him the same in return. Another name crosses her mind but… to call Gale the source of her joy is premature.
Bruises fade. They are a temporary pain inflicted by another from the outside. To call Gale zhak vo'n'fynh duj is to admit he has changed her. That the unfurling in her chest and belly is not some rotted carrion being pried open but a part of her he's breathing life into.
There are too many opportunities for him to ruin what they've found.
So she lets him kiss her tenderly. Enjoys it as his fingers climb to her shoulder blades, knowing his strong but willfully soft touch will only leave a mark on her soul, where no one else can see. And when his affection fades, only she will know the damage.
"Compromise, how?"
Gale's tongue laves over the tendon connecting her neck and shoulder, his hirsute face almost tickling as his jaw widens and lips latch to her skin.
His soothing touch transforms with ease when he sucks at her neck. His short fingernails find just enough purchase on her back to make her thighs clench and back arch into him, grinding against his lap as she sucks in a breath.
She stiffens before slowly melting in his grasp. His kisses, finally needy enough to take, feel like his gaze from earlier. Confident. Ready for a challenge.
They're kisses strong enough to mold her around him for once. Judging by the way his fingers dig into her hips as he rocks her on his lap, her lips aren't the only thing he wants to mold to him.
She has the fleeting thought that he's calculating his kisses and he pulls away. "Can I earn my endearment like this? Or is it only earned in combat?"
Gale's kisses down her throat served a purpose. Looking at the soft swells of her breasts where he stopped, her skin turns a familiar shade but not in any shape she'd recognize. The color only came at the expense of pain from the flat of a blade, a fist, even teeth. A reminder to grow stronger than the immovable weapon that created it.
He can't possibly know what he's done to her mind by leaving bruises, in the shape of his mouth, on her body with only his lips.
"Lae'zel?"
"What will you do if another tries to leave these bruises on me?"
He tenses below her. Her knees squeeze around his flanks. She's already softened herself for him. If he wants a name she's willing to give right now, he can earn it. And he knows it. The confidence in his gaze mingles with the fire – the anger – from this morning.
"I would turn them to ash with a whisper and a wave."
Intelligent enough to earn a name for himself in her eyes. Maybe he'd be smart enough to earn the other if he knew of it. Then again, he could find another loophole. While this angle does not leave her wanting, she will not settle for anything less than him truly embodying zhak'vo'n'fynh duj before she speaks it aloud.
"Zhak'vo'n'ash duj," she whispers against his lips then kisses him. Because he's earned this when there hadn't been a need.
Finally.
Covering Lae'zel in love bites had been a last ditch effort. He did not expect them to count but hoped they would. She gave him a test he didn't have to pass but knowing his honest answer was enough. Gods. To hold the same place in her heart as she did in his. To be rewarded for his possessiveness.
Lae'zel kisses and kisses and kisses him until he's gasping. She uses her nails only to trace along his back as she drags his tunic off and over his head. He does the same and they're stripping one another with the thoughtful, precise, movements of apprentices learning somatic gestures.
"You're beautiful."
"Of course. I am gith."
He smiles and groans as she settles over him again. Her slick heat against his shaft has him lost for a moment.
"Just paying a compliment where it's due."
Gale cradles her hips in his palms and thumbs over her swollen clit. She follows the touch, rocking against his length.
"Am I expected to return this sentiment? That I find your body pleasing?" Her rough hands follow his chest hair down and splay across his middle where he's softer and slightly self conscious. "Your girth is more impressive than male gith."
Gale's face heats, cock twitching, as his thumb loses its rhythm against her.
"You don't have to… return the compliment."
"But you enjoy it."
He does. He can see in her eyes the moment it clicks that hearing her praise is what undoes him. The verbal acknowledgment that he has done well.
"Source of my bruises," she says in common before licking a stripe from his collarbone to his ear. He moans and a shiver walks its way up his spine. "I'll enjoy the ache of you in the morning."
His hands are useless on her hips. Barely able to keep himself grounded enough to not come the moment she envelops him in her dripping cunt.
Lae'zel sucks in a breath, her walls pulsing around him, trying to fit him. "Your illusion didn't do you justice."
"Dearest, if you keep that up, I won't last long."
Gale's desperate grip moves to her ass when she swivels her hips.
"We will improve your endurance. If you climax before I'm done you can use your mouth."
"Fuck!" The mental image of her toned thighs bracketing his head while she rides his face, tasting the mix of his spend with her essence, is what deals the embarrassing blow.
Gale clings to her, fingers pressing too hard into leathery soft skin as he spills inside her. He expects a great many things to happen but none were her hand in his hair, petting softly, and her smile looking pleased. If a bit devious.
"We're… figuring something out, aren't we, love?"
Giving and taking. Meeting one another where they're at. Lae'zel may not be able to say that she loves him yet, but he can see it in the quirk of her lip as she huffs, lifts off him, and begins crawling up his body to make good on her promise.