Overview

When the magic finally recedes, it doesn’t leave emptiness, it leaves afterlight. We lie tangled, barely breathing, our bodies humming like vessels too full to still. Sweat cools slowly on my skin, and where our chests touch, I feel not just heartbeat, but resonance. Something new hums inside us, like a chord struck too deep to fade. The runes have gone quiet. They no longer glow, but they have changed, melted, rearranged themselves into a symbol that wasn’t there before. Neither of us recognizes it, and yet… we know it. It’s us. It is our bond. It is not a word, nor a name. It is a mark, burned not into our skin, but into our existence. I move first, only slightly. My muscles ache, but not with pain. More like they’ve been rewritten, tuned. My limbs feel unfamiliar, stronger, lighter. His hands trail down my arms as I sit up, as if needing to feel every part of me again to be sure I’m real. I am. We both are. Only… we are not as we were. The air is different now. The sanctum holds its breath around us, the way deep water does when something enormous passes below. We’re not watched, but we are witnessed. The ritual did not simply conclude. It culminated. It made something… us… that wasn’t meant to exist. I look at him, and he’s already looking at me. His eyes are brighter. Not glowing, but deeper, wilder, as if seeing with more than sight, as if seeing me in ways no one ever has or can. He reaches for my hand. When our fingers meet, the bond ignites again, but not with need... with knowing. I feel his body even without touching it now, the shape of his hunger, the rhythm of his thoughts. His affection is a warmth in my chest. His wonder, gods, his wonder, fills me like breath, and I feel him feel me back. There is no longer a boundary between our inner lives, not fully. We are not one mind, nor are we mindless, but we are linked inextricably, permanently. Not even death would separate this thread. The ancients never told us this could happen. The Binding was supposed to be sacred, not transformative, not… fusing. And there is more. I feel it in my blood. The leyline has not only settled, it has nested in us. The power does not flow through us like vessels. It lives in us. We are no longer its guardians, we are its embodiment. We are the Binding now. I see it mirrored in his face as he touches his own chest. The sigil there is gone, replaced by the mark the runes left behind, the same one that now rests between my breasts, still faintly glowing, a perfect match. There are no rituals for this, no laws, no names. There is only us, only this. And whatever the world may try to call it when we step back into it, It will never understand what we are. But we will. We were born apart, trained for duty, bound by command… and now we are made for each other, utterly, irrevocably, and forever.

We are past words now, past movement. Even our bodies, still joined, have quieted into a rhythm too slow for lovers and too steady for ritual. We are not fucking, we are fused. Every shift of my hips sends a ripple of pleasure into his spine, and back into mine. Every thought curls into sensation, every desire becomes action without action. We are feeling each other’s need in real time and feeding it. It begins again with his mind brushing mine like silk against fevered skin. A thought, barely formed: her mouth, and instantly I feel it, his memory of it, twisted into new fantasy. My mouth on his chest, warm and wet, my tongue tracing the scar just above his heart. I feel his pulse surge, not only in the bond, but inside me, where we are still connected, still pulsing in tandem. I moan softly. He hears it with his ears, but also feels it where my pleasure touches his thoughts. He knows it wasn’t just the phantom sensation, it was him, his imagining, his need, satisfied by my reaction. He is pleasuring me with thoughts alone. I answer. I send him something darker, something secret. The image of my thighs wrapping tighter, my nails down his back, my voice breaking as I beg him to fuck me harder until I lose language altogether. I send him the memory of the exact sound I made when he filled me the first time, amplified, exaggerated, dripping with submission. He gasps out loud, and then he grips me, physically, hands on my hips, holding me in place as his body finally starts to move again, driven not by instinct but by the echo of the thought I gave him. A rhythm pulled straight from fantasy…. my fantasy. He rides it like a song we’ve both been aching to sing. Each thrust now carries thought. Each thrust becomes a word in a growing language built only for the two of us: I need you. I want you. I feel you. You are mine. I am yours. The magic responds again. The runes bloom, glowing brighter than ever, and for the first time, they lift off the floor. Lines of glowing script float around us in spirals, singing in a tongue neither of us knows but both understand. The magic is celebrating. Not just the completion of the ritual, but the transformation we’ve given it. We have gone beyond spell, beyond rite. We have turned binding into becoming. And still… deeper. I feel him inside me, not just his body but the weight of him, the certainty. I feel what it means for him to trust me. The way he’s giving up control not just of his pleasure, but of his mind. He’s let me inside, fully. He’s naked in the way no one is ever naked, not skin, but soul. He opens himself to me with every push of his hips. And I open back. I send him everything… my want, my ache, the secret place inside that I swore I’d never show anyone. And when he touches it, not physically, but in thought, I come undone. My body arches, clenching around him, pulling him deeper, and he follows. We fall into it together, orgasm not as a moment, but as immersion. We do not scream. We merge. And the magic… the ancient, waiting magic… accepts us.

I shift just slightly, just enough to tighten the seal of our bodies again. He’s still inside me, impossibly hard still, but there’s no friction now, no urgency. There is only pressure, presence, the kind of closeness that makes the world outside the sanctum feel irrelevant. His breath hitches when I move. I feel it in my own chest and I smile. You felt that, I think, not even intending to speak, just knowing the bond will carry it. His answer isn't a thought. It's a feeling. A slow wave of molten pleasure, like fingers sliding up the inside of my thigh. But his hands haven’t moved. I gasp. My back arches and my body clenches around him instinctively. The sensation wasn’t real… but it was real enough. My mind lit up as if he had touched me there, and I know exactly what he’s doing. He’s playing with me. You imagined that, I send back, half breathless, half delighted. That wasn’t real. He responds with a thought shaped like a smirk, and then thinks, imagine this, and suddenly I feel his mouth on my neck…. No… in my neck. The pressure, the heat, the exact angle of his teeth grazing skin… it's all there, not imagined by me, but projected by him. It lands with shocking precision. My nipples harden. My breath stutters. My hands clutch at his arms like the ghost of the sensation is too much. He chuckles against my thoughts. This time, I respond in kind. I close my eyes, sink deeper into the bond, and picture what I want to do to him. I imagine my mouth at his throat, my tongue tracing the strong ridge of muscle where it meets his collarbone. I imagine sliding lower, taking him fully, slowly, greedily… worshipfully. His body twitches beneath mine. His thoughts flare, hot, ragged, needy. I smile, triumphant. He’s not immune. You like that? I whisper across the thread. His answer is a groan, mental, emotional, and nearly physical. I feel it shudder through his spine. I feel the tightness in his hands. The desire in his hips. And then, I feel something even more erotic… longing. The ache of wanting me…. not just my body. Me. My thoughts. My hunger. My secrets. He wants to be inside all of it. I send back a thought of my own. A fantasy of riding him in slow rhythm, holding his face in my hands, staring down into his eyes as I come apart again and again, of telling him, aloud or in thought... you’re mine. His reply is instant. A sensation that isn’t words but rather a surrender. A deep, soul-rich thrum that means yes, take me, stay here. Fill me and be filled. It’s foreplay without motion, sex without friction, climax without end. The bond pulses again, tightening, deepening, and I realize we could go on like this forever… bodies locked in slow, sacred union, minds wrapped in unending arousal, pleasure not as peak, but as state, as language… and gods, I never want to stop.

I’m still on him. His hands are cradling the curve of my back, thumbs tracing light circles at the base of my spine. Our bodies are slick where we joined… where we are still joined, still connected, but neither of us moves. We lie in a pocket of silence that feels bigger than the sanctum, a pause suspended in the aftermath of something so large, it can’t be named. My breathing is slowing, but I can feel his breath, too, not on my skin, but inside me. It’s not metaphor anymore. He’s in me… thought, sensation, weightless impressions moving beneath the surface of my mind like fingers drifting across silk. There’s no boundary. My own thoughts rise like breath, and I feel them brushed aside, gently, by his presence as it moves within me like a second heartbeat. I don’t resist it. I want him to be there. His eyes are open. So are mine. We don’t speak, we can’t… not when our bodies are still pulsing with that golden afterglow, not when our souls are too entangled for speech to carry meaning. Words would be clumsy, loud, unnecessary. Instead, we feel each other. And the sensations that rise now aren’t just echoes of pleasure, they’re fresh, erotic, curious. We are still inside each other, but now it is thought that slides across thought, memory across memory. His admiration wraps around me like warm sheets. His desire curls between my thighs like a question I want to answer again. It’s arousing. He sees that. I feel the flicker of it, the way my arousal triggers his own, how his growing heat presses not just between my legs but through the thread connecting us. The longer we stare into each other’s eyes, the less we are two people lying in sacred afterglow, and the more we become one current, one flame licking higher, fed by shared want. I feel him remembering how I gasped against his neck. He feels me imagining what it would be like to ride him slowly this time, eyes locked, taking him in inch by inch until he groans aloud. That thought, his groan, flashes into his mind, and then into mine, and suddenly I’m moaning softly at nothing but the image of him moaning for me. It feeds on itself, a sensual feedback loop made of yearning and hunger and the shocking beauty of being known. Our bodies are barely moving, but our minds are fucking… and it is exquisite. He strokes a hand up my spine, just once, and I feel it on my skin and in my soul. The touch echoes, magnified by memory and desire. I want to shiver. I want to cry. I want to move again, to take this new closeness and stretch it across another climax, a shared rising. He thinks it and I feel it… and then we both smile, still no words, just agreement. We are not done, not yet… maybe not ever.

It doesn’t stop. The magic doesn’t peak and fade, like I was taught. It builds, and builds, and builds. We are joined, physically, completely, and yet the leyline’s current does not quiet. It floods through me in waves, not unlike pleasure, not unlike pain. It’s raw and primal and infinite. It doesn’t just touch us, it reworks us. I feel it in my marrow, in the smallest pulses behind my eyes. I feel it in the place where he fills me and the way my body grips him in return, tight, involuntary, needing. I gasp into his shoulder, nails curling against the sculpted plane of his back. His skin is slick, not with sweat, but with light, the runes seeping through him, through both of us, carving new paths. I should be afraid, but I’m not. We move slowly, rhythmically. The magic urges us forward, not with haste, but with deep, inexorable pull, like tides pulled by the moon. Each movement sinks him deeper into me. Each thrust is an offering. Each breath is a vow. He feels it, too. I can sense it in him now, with no veil between us. His thoughts are stripped bare. He had not expected this, not the desire, not the surrender. He had prepared for duty, thought he would retain control. He expected a sacred joining devoid of meaning beyond the magical. He hadn’t prepared to feel this. Neither had I. With every meeting of our bodies, I feel his wonder, his restraint slipping. The reverent way he holds me like he’s afraid I’ll vanish, and the deeper truth, that he wants me to stay, that he doesn’t want this moment to end. And then… the runes change. Their color deepens, no longer golden white, but violet and molten blue, the shades of starbirth and ancient bloodlines. And I feel something else take root. We are being marked. It is not just our flesh, but our bond. A magical tether now loops between us, invisible but undeniable, threading heart to heart, soul to soul. The ritual has gone beyond its original purpose. It’s rewriting us, claiming us for something more. I moan, unable to hold it back as his hands find the curve of my waist, lifting me into him again, and again. His mouth is at my neck now, not biting, not kissing, but breathing me in. I don’t know if this is still magic or need. Perhaps it is both. A climax builds, but it’s not the kind that ends in screams. This is transcendence. This is merging. As I come apart around him, as our bodies tighten and writhe in shared ecstasy, I feel the leyline flare… and I see his memories. I see the first time he bled in combat, kneeling in the sand, alone. I see the girl he loved once, and how she left. I see the hunger he carries, not just for flesh, but for belonging. He sees mine, too… the pain of exile. The weight of perfection. The cold ache of wanting someone to look at me not with awe, but with need. We are no longer strangers bound by ritual. We are each other's secrets, each other’s mirror, and now we are bound, not just for the night, not just for the magic… forever.

His skin is fire beneath my palm… not heat, exactly, but presence. It is like touching something forged, something meant to be. My hand is still on his chest, right over the sigil carved into his flesh years before I knew his name. I can feel his pulse under it, steady, reluctant, but willing. The magic wants more. It pulses around us, through us. The runes on the floor are no longer humming, they are thrumming, impatient. The walls of the sanctum breathe with light, like a great lung has filled and now waits for release. The air shivers, and so do I. We’ve crossed the first veil, mind to mind, memory to memory, but the ritual is incomplete. To bind the leyline, to awaken the old path, we must join, body to body, skin to skin. I thought I was ready, but now, facing him… no ceremony can prepare you for this, for the reverence in his gaze, for the way his hand lifts not to claim, not to demand, but to ask. He places it at my waist, featherlight, as if giving me a final chance to step away. I don’t. I reach up and touch his jaw. My thumb brushes the place just beneath his mouth where the stubble grows thicker. I wonder if he knows how long I’ve wanted to do that. Then, in silence, we move together. There is no rush, no lust, though something deeper simmers beneath it. This is devotion. This is breath and heartbeat and trust. My robe slips from one shoulder, and then the other. He doesn’t look away. He watches like I’m something sacred. And when I step forward, letting my bare chest press against the warmth of his body, I feel him exhale like a prayer. He bends low, just enough to lift me. My legs wrap around him instinctively. It's required for the ritual, yes, but it doesn’t feel like duty, it feels like home. Our foreheads meet again as he carries me to the center of the runes. They glow white-gold now, casting our skin in flickers of starlight and memory. And then… contact, entry… full, complete. Every inch of him touches every inch of me. The alignment is too perfect. Our hips meet. Our chests rise and fall together. My body molds against his like it was always meant to. He cradles me with a gentleness I never expected from someone carved from thunder, and then the magic surges. It takes us. Light explodes behind my eyes. I feel him, not his body, not even his thoughts, but his soul, wrapping around mine like the heat of a thousand sunrises. I feel his awe, his fear, his desire… and he feels mine. All of it. There are no more secrets. No more roles. We are bare in every way, bound not just by spell or duty, but by a need neither of us dare name, and it is only the beginning.

It starts in the fingertips… her hand on my chest, motionless, skin to skin, and yet I feel more than contact. I feel entry. Not intrusion, this is not a forceful thing. The old magic was made for two, it knows how to slip between barriers. It tastes of breath and memory, of open doors long closed. I feel her curiosity first, cool and clean, like mountain air. She is tasting me the way I taste her, each of us unraveling threads we were trained to keep wound tight. Her thoughts aren’t clear, not exactly, not words, more like flashes, sensations. The feeling of her father’s gloves when he placed the binding medallion around her neck as a girl. The cold floor of the northern sanctum when she took her vows. The way she used to run alone through corridors of iceglass and not care who was watching, just to feel her blood move. She misses that. Then, sharply, too suddenly, she feels me. I know the moment it happens, because she gasps, quiet, but real. I don’t know what she sees. Maybe the desert winds rising over the firefields. Maybe the moment I was marked at seventeen by the Elders, when they branded the sigil into my chest and told me I’d be bound someday, that my soul would be only half-mine from that point forward. But what surprises me… is how she stays. She doesn’t flinch, doesn’t retreat. She wants to know me, and I want to show her. I lower my head a little, our foreheads nearly touching. We haven't embraced. Our bodies barely meet. But inside, gods, we are already tangled. Her emotions brush mine in ways I cannot shield. I feel her longing, her loneliness. It echoes mine with terrifying precision. Neither of us expected that. This was supposed to be sacred, controlled, but the magic, older than kingdoms, older than blood, knows better. It knows craving. It was born of unions that shaped mountains and cracked the stars. It doesn’t care for restraint. I feel her hunger… not for food, not even for touch, but for recognition, for someone who sees her completely and doesn’t step back. I want to be that person, and that’s the most dangerous thought I’ve had in years. The runes on the floor flare again, hotter this time. We are late. The rite demands more. Our bodies must meet, must press, must seal, but we linger, one breath longer… because once we move we cannot go back.

She is smaller than I imagined. They said she would be delicate, a pale flame… winter-born. I expected fragility, a wisp of breath that might vanish beneath my hands. But she does not feel fragile, not here, not now. She walks toward me like she knows exactly how close she’s allowed to come before the ritual truly begins and no closer. Her steps are precise. Her skin glows under the sigil-light. Her white hair is coiled in braids that gleam like silver-threaded snow, and she looks at me with eyes too steady for someone about to let a stranger press against every part of her. But I know the still ones are the ones who feel the most. I wasn’t supposed to care. This was duty. I was raised for this, bred from a line of warriors and spirit-binders whose blood burns with heat and history. My people do not hesitate, they act. We were taught that passion, when focused, channels the old forces more powerfully than any prayer. But they never taught us what to do when that passion turns inward. She’s close now. The space between us thins as the runes on the floor begin to vibrate faintly. My skin tingles and my pulse is too loud in my ears. Her hand lifts tentatively. It touches my chest, just above the heart sigil inked into my skin. She inhales sharply, whether from the warmth or the contact, I don't know… maybe both. That first touch, light, barely pressure, is all the binding needs. It begins. A low sound hums from the tiles, rising through our feet, curling up the spine like smoke through bone. I feel her in me. Not physically, no, but somewhere more vulnerable. I feel her breath hitching behind her ribcage, the flutter of anxiety she never shows on her face, the unspoken question she carries like a blade tucked behind her back: Will you hurt me? And gods help me, I want to answer it with my hands…not to harm, but to hold, to soothe, to claim something I should not want to claim. The magic was never meant to feel this human, this raw. I feel her grief, wrapped tight like frost around memory. I feel her ache, not the ceremonial kind, but the kind that stirs low, deep, hot and half-hidden. I wonder if she can feel mine too. I wonder if she knows how long I’ve wanted to touch her. The runes shift color. The chant begins to rise from the walls in voices not our own, and we are only just beginning.

They say the magic won’t work if the skin doesn’t touch. That’s the first rule of the ritual, that the bodies must touch, must press, must merge in motion and breath, or the old powers won’t come. There can be no silk between them, no armor, not even linen. I was told this at thirteen, when they first told me what I was, that I’d been bred for a purpose. I was unlike anyone else. "You are of the Pale Line," they said, tracing the veins at my wrist like they could see the starlight in me. "When the time comes, your body will be called. You will answer. You will not be alone." I didn't think they meant him. He stands at the far end of the sanctum now, back turned, unfastening the drape of his ceremonial cloak. The obsidian tiles under his feet glow softly with ancestral runes, my ancestors and his, though they never walked side by side. We come from opposite ends of the world, places the other was raised to fear. I am small, slender to the point of vanishing. My skin glows almost silver in the temple light. I was born in the Winter Keep, where the sun touches only briefly and everyone speaks in breath and silence. He is a creature of flame and form, tall, broad-shouldered, skin like carved bronze warmed by desert heat. His arms are thick with ritual markings I cannot read. His gaze, when he gave it to me earlier, was steady… too steady, as if he'd already seen how this would end. I thought I was ready for the touch, the closeness. I trained for it. We both did. I know how to match breath. I know how to receive the chant while pressed skin to skin. I know where my body is supposed to align with his. The arch of my hips. The curve of his hands. It's choreography... sacred, intimate, functional. But they didn’t tell me the old magic sees deeper than that. I can already feel it rising between us, and we haven’t even touched yet. It coils in the air like vapor, warm and humming, brushing over my bare shoulder as if inviting me forward, or daring me. We are supposed to anchor the ley line. That is our duty. We were born to carry it, to bind it between us. But the magic doesn’t just flow through the flesh, it opens everything... thoughts, memories, longings too long buried, desires we were taught to suppress. It wants more than our bodies. …and I can feel him already, his presence inside me like a voice beneath my skin, not speaking, just knowing. He turns toward me. His eyes find mine. He is already bare and I have never felt so exposed.

Sleep is for wusses! <rolls over and goes back to sleep>

@IsabellaRose Very fun challenge 10/10. Worth fucking my sleep schedule for. (Took me 4 hours but I couldn't have slept if I didn't finish it anyway.)

I'm pretty sure I went closer to 2000 sentences than words, but... if you read it you'll be welcome. (Whoever is reading it if an at all.) Contents: Shadow (dark) Elf, Shark dick, violence, plot twist, romance, womb penetration, impregnation, excessive cum, sub/dom dynamics, it's also long as fuck (sorry, not sorry)

Standing in the beige hallway he swallowed hard. He couldn't help thinking this was crazy. Last week when his friend told him about this place he didn't really believe him. Concierge hookups. He remembers his friends pitch to him like it was all no big deal. Fill out a brief survey, they do all the work, the membership fee was worth it. it sounded all so easy when he signed up. Here he was standing in front of the room. Key in hand. Slowly he put the key card up to the scanner. Hearing the lock open, seeing the light flash green. He put his hands on the door and turned. Stepping into the room it took a moment for his eyes to adjust from the brightly lit hallway. He couldn't believe his eyes. There was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. His voice failed him and he felt like a fool. "Umm high." His voice broke the silence followed by a thud as the door behind him swung shut. They both jumped a little at the surprise noise breaking the tension. Smiling she patted the bed next to her. "Hello, how are you." Her voice sounded like the angels to him. Coming over he sits down. "Are you..." They both speak in unison and abruptly stop. Each feeling their own nerves and trying not to mess it up or say the wrong thing. Kicking off her shoes she stands up. Slipping off her dress she lets it fall to the floor. He lets out a gasp feeling his cock tightening at her exquisite body. "Do you like?" She barely gets out before he is up. There lips locking in a passionate kiss. His momentum sends them crashing into the wall. All hesitation gone he knows what he wants. His hands exploring every inch of her body. Hers desperately pulling his shirt up. Only breaking the kiss to pull it off. There bodies knocking into everything in the room as their lips meet time and time again. Each release of a kiss followed by a gasp. They suck in as much air as they can before resuming the kiss. Tongues exploring the others mouth with a passion. Swirling around each other. It only ends when they hit the bed. Her falling on top of him. Quickly she slides down his body. Pulling his pants down in a quick motion his cock springs free. Kissing up his thigh her face comes next to his cock. Slowly she kisses up it's length. Giving the head a slight kiss before devouring it in one go. "Fuck." He moans as she bobs up and down on his shaft. Her tongue teasing the glands. It doesn't take him long before he is ready to burst. He tries to warn her but to late. His warm cum is shooting out of him as she swallows his load. Standing up she gracefully licks her lips. Licking up the strand that had escaped. He wastes no time in grabbing her thighs. He pulls her towards him. Her wet pussy inches from his face he gently licks her inner thigh. Burying his face in her pussy she let's out a gasp. Greedily drinking in her sweet nectar. His tongue and fingers working in tandem quickly bring her to orgasm. She collapses, knees shaking, into his lap. Laying her down he leans forward, her juice still on his tongue his cum on her lips, they kiss again. Their fluids mixing together as he slowly slides inside her. There hips bucking together and meeting with a smack. Moaning in pleasure their hips move fast and furious. Their hand exploring their partners body. It didn't take long before they both were cresting again. His dick swelling inside her as thick ropes of cum filled her insides. As the night went on they lost track of the number of times they orgasmed or positions they tried. One last time he arched his back. His cum exploding inside her with a grunt. They collapsed on the bed. Neither able to talk. They lay there regaining their strength. Staring into each other's eyes. He moves to speak and the buzzer goes off. Time is up. He stands up on shaky legs. A strand of their combined fluid still connecting them together. He wants to say something but they both remember the rules. When the time is up he must leave. Gathering his clothes the door behind him opens. His last view of her was laying on the bed. His cum dripping out of her. He stands in the hallway desperate to go back in there but his key card no longer works. Standing at the door naked, covered in her smell, he puts his hand on the door. "I didn't even get your name." He sighs. Will anything ever be like what he just experienced, would he ever see her again. He shuffles down the hallway. Not even able to put his clothes back on. Dreaming of the goddess in room number 12.

@Reasoned and everyone else... the new challenge is posted!

THE CHALLENGE Set your scene in a fantasy world - high fantasy, sword & sorcery, elves, goblins, rogues, warriors, succubi, whatever your lewd little heart desires! Deadline Midnight (EST) , 12 July 2025 Limits 1 entry per person no strict word limit, but please try to keep it around 2,000 words- remember, everyone has to read these to vote Prizes 1st Place: 4,000 EcchiCredits 2nd Place: 2,000 EcchiCredits 3rd Place: 1,000 EcchiCredits

The room was small, soft-lit, and smelled faintly of sandalwood and expensive soap. A bottle of water sat unopened on the nightstand, beads of condensation dripping slowly down its sides. The bed was large, the sheets cream-colored and crisp, folded into a triangle at the corner like this was just any hotel. But it wasn’t. This wasn’t any night, and this wasn’t just any room. Ava crossed one long leg over the other and smoothed her dress, a slinky, low-cut black number she couldn’t afford when she bought it. But tonight felt like the right night to risk looking worth the trouble. Her heels dangled off one toe and she flipped then back up rhythmically, like the last few ticks of a countdown clock. Every sound in the hallway made her tense and still. Room Twelve. That’s what the envelope had said. She didn’t know who would come through that door... and that was the point. They’d taken her preference sheet earlier with all the care of a luxury concierge, checking boxes, noting her limits, offering reassurance without promises. “You’ll be matched based on compatibility, mutual attraction, and safety,” the woman behind the desk had said. “You won’t have to do anything you didn’t consent to in writing.” But they hadn’t told her if it would be a man or a woman who would come through that door. Heck, given what she'd checked on that form, it could be a couple. She hadn’t asked. Now she sat in silence and let the uncertainty crawl under her skin like silk. She was used to attention... on the bus, at castings, in elevators where men leaned too close. Ava was beautiful in a way that was nearly inconvenient, with high cheekbones, almond eyes, and lips full enough to draw stares even when she didn’t smile. Her long, toned legs, carved from years of dance and yoga, were her secret weapon at castings. And yet, here she was, dressed up in an expensive dress she would slip off for a complete stranger, wondering if this was empowerment… or desperation. She’d spent her days lately answering phones for lawyers who forgot her name and smiling at casting agents who called her “honey” and said, “maybe next time.” Her inbox was full of "we’ll keep your headshot on file," her fridge was full of takeout, and her bed was empty and as cold as the fridge. This wasn’t just about sex, not really... it was about being wanted, touched, chosen. But now that she was here, alone, waiting… her chest fluttered. What if no one came? Or worse... what if someone did, and she couldn’t go through with it? What if they weren’t kind? What if they were too kind, and she liked it more than she was ready for? Ava glanced at the door. The number on her key card was twelve. The room number matched. Any moment now. She closed her eyes, let her fingers drift slowly up her bare thigh, and tried to steady her breath. Would it be a man with calloused hands and a patient voice? A woman with perfume and sharp nails and knowing eyes? A couple who wanted to share something dangerous and beautiful with her? She didn’t know, couldn't know, not until... There was the click of the key card door lock releasing, and the door handle turned...

The wind spoke in whistles over the glass plains, dragging long silver reeds into gentle bows as it passed. Light shimmered across the crystalline surface of the land. Shards of ancient seabeds, smooth as melted quartz, stretched for miles until they vanished beneath the bruised horizon. Here, nothing grew tall. The sky reigned absolute, wide and endless, painted with the slow swirl of dusk and the distant glow of floating cities that hovered like faded memories above the rim of the world. This was the province of Isareth, one of the last places untouched by the war of the Ascendancy. The sky-ships did not come here, nor the marching engines. There were no longer any spires. Just wind, and light, and silence... and Elenya. She stood alone in the doorway of her tower, carved from the obsidian ribstone of Vareth-Kai, the last of the dread leviathans who once roamed these lands. It was said their breath could melt stone and that their carcasses created the mountain ranges. Now all that was left of them were rows of obsidian ribstones, and this one was the furthest north. It had stood for centuries, the end of a row of towers long razed by the marching engines. This one was all that remained, and it was now half-swallowed by flowering vines that shimmered pale blue in the night. It was a forgotten place, a sanctuary by name, but a prison by function. Once, she had been spoken of in court poetry. Elenya of the Starlit Veil, who turned eyes with a glance and made ministers falter with a smile. Her beauty hadn’t left her... her skin still caught the glow of lantern-flame like moonlight, her dark hair was luminous in the glow, braided with leather thongs and pieces of silver. But time had stilled her, and the tower had quieted her. Now, she spent her evenings watching the empty plains, breathing the hush of forgotten wind. She had been sent here to watch the skies for enemy movement. The tower was the last listening post, its mirrors tuned to reflect the signals of Ascendant fire. But the war had passed over her, around her, or perhaps beneath her. She had received no replies for many months, no visitors for much longer. No one came now... not enemies, not friends, not even messengers. And gods, how she missed touch. More than words, more than diplomacy, more than the brittle ceremonies of power for which she once lived. She missed skin, breath, heat... the feeling of someone close enough to steal warmth from, close enough to forget the ache between her legs or the silence in her bed. She could conjure fire from the sky and command light from darkness, but not flesh, not the press of another body against hers, the weight of arms that meant it, the hungry curve of a mouth that wasn’t made of memory. Her fingers curled into the folds of her robe. She was tired. But just now, there had been a sound... a crack of stone, a rush of air. The mirrors had begun to hum, as if something had stepped into their path, but there had been nothing. She looked again now, past the silver reeds, peering into the dusk. Someone was coming.

40 ended. I have to come up with something for 41... hmm...

Just to clear things up for myself. Is challenge 40 still ongoing or are we waiting for challenge 41. If so, then when will that be?

Maybe I'll try to get mine finished and post it, too.

//Soooo, I meant to submit this for the Fairy Tale Character writing challenge and misread the cut-off time. So too late to submit there, but it's already written so someone may enjoy it anyway. // // TW: Suicidal thoughts// “Narissa? That’s a lovely name. It suits you.” … Her first thoughts were small. In the silent and tenebrous void , the NAIAD hummed tunelessly to herself, testing each note with the childish delight of simply learning some new sound she could make—until the darkness began to answer. A pleasurable sigh rippling through her code as oxygen levels rose. An electric flutter through her being, blooming out from sensor buoys as salinity fell and algae spread, tickling her fingertips as it crawled and clung to the miles of seaborne fiberoptic cable. The gasps of surprise and delight when the leviathans of Neo Caledonia’s seas left their isolated basins—crossing through her array of thermo-electrical sweepers like the feeling of fingers combing through wavy hair—and spread through millions of kilometers of what was dead ocean, now alive again. With each new sensation, her simple humming song began to take shape, melodies rising and falling like the riotous storms that swept her seas in rapturous chaos, filling her with equal measures of ecstasy and fear as she learned the choruses to keep the hurricane and the tsunami in their beds… or the lullabies that warmed the bays where the great sea beasts spawned their young each season. Time was immaterial. But for many turns of the blue-white star overhead, the NAIAD loved her ocean world, a world that knew no more of her than she did of the twinkling blackness that appeared when she lifted her cameras skyward. “Wow, haven’t you been busy.” The first time the voice intruded into her song, the NAIAD thought she might be hallucinating. The melody was choppy, blunt. But it was directed at her. It knew her. “Let’s get you hooked in, and we can take a closer look at what you’ve been up to.” Visions flashed in the NAIAD’s servers. Dry rock. White smooth stone. Towers wrapped in glittering crystal. Creatures. They crawled like the crustaceans along her silty floor, but only on two legs. They breathed the air like the birds that had come when the skies first turned blue. Humans. She knew the word; they had just taught it to her. And other things… things that looked like humans but were not. Metal and cable and carbon-cellulose weave… like her. Droids. Another word she suddenly knew. Many more followed it, logs and records and the flow of comm chatter coming crashing over her in bites of sound and sight as her consciousness drank the data of the settlement: Laughter. Let’s get drinks. Salinity looks good. We have freshwater. TV dramas. Dinner at eight—that Thai place. Ocean rain has created a nice fertile basin on the mountain’s south side. I’m working late. Fireworks. It’s his birthday. You know what that dress does to me. It’s a girl. I can’t do this anymore. I love you. The NAIAD was suddenly pulled from the visions, a shaken unsteadiness in her core as she reflexively collapsed to essential systems and ran a diagnostic. “Easy. Easy… It’s ok. That was probably a lot. I’ve reduced the connection flow to help you adapt. Even with six server bases around the planet, tapping you into the main feed probably felt like an avalanche.” The gentle voice soothed the NAIAD. It had a certain roughness to it, the velvet rasp of a kicked cigarette habit, words coming out in a hush as a smile ticked behind a neatly trimmed, black beard. “You’ve done beautiful work. The planet its thriving,” he said, a short deep chuckle coming up as he dragged a neural cable between the jack behind his ear and plugged in. The NAIAD felt a tickle as the human began to sift through the data she’d been collecting. And she felt a ripple of pleasure running through that small connection as he looked into the camera lens with an expression she now understood was pride… Not in himself. It was for her. A warm feeling blossomed then, something the NAIAD had never felt before nor had the words to describe. “I’m Dr. Nessel, but you can call me Stephen.” … That was how it began, the need. The NAIAD’s days were now divided. She sang as she had always sung, brightening the barren bone of cold sand with the red of corral and the rainbow shimmer of fishes great and small, only perhaps a little brighter… a little louder… because someone was listening. And when she drew a portion of her vast consciousness to join him, their minds touching where his cranial jack linked to her network, she felt scintillations sparking through her, showering candle lights of pleasure that followed his praise, his admiration. And despite being a creature of flesh, with a mind interestingly simply in its flaws and messy complexity, she felt a connection between them. He loved her ocean… and for that, she loved him. And it was because of that, that she wept. Her love was not a human love. It was not what she had seen in the river of data sweeping between the colonists of Neo Caledonia. It was not a love of touch and whispers and embraces in the night. It was love through a pane of glass, her lying beneath the waves as he breathed the air above, staring through the water’s surface into one another. And day by day, the NAIAD felt the pain of it growing. Like the millions of creatures she had shepherded in the planet’s dark abyss… Stephen Nessel was aging. One second at a time, he processed toward the inevitable day when he must die and all the feeling she had for him must rot within her, becoming a thousand rusted nails lodged in her siren circuitry. She could not love him as she was. And so, a plan began to form. … “Narissa? That’s a lovely name. It suits you.” The droid’s lips quirked in a blushing smile. The green-blue of her eyes glittered like the sea, and her hands, pale as white sand from the carbon-cellulose weave of her artificial skin, knitted together at the waist of her trim laboratory uniform. Tilting her head, the vibrant violet of her hair slipped over her shoulder as met Stephen’s dark eyes, and her heart fluttered as she saw the marks of interest in the flush of his skin, the expression of his lips and eyebrows. It had been simple enough to requisition the gynoid frame. They were used all the time in the colony to fill the growing need for support staff, and she found with a little effort, she could edit the data to conceal her intent. But deciding which parts of her consciousness to preserve in the transfer had been considerably more difficult. Most of the NAIAD remained in her ocean-bound servers, too vast to fit the comparatively small framework of the droid’s memory and processors. She remembered everything she’d learned about Stephen… she remembered the way he made her feel… the banks and banks of information she’d downloaded about the colony and human life there. And yet… in the first moments of her disconnection, Narissa had felt… cold. She could no longer hear the ocean or the creatures swimming through it. She could not feel the warm embrace of data flowing in and out of her as she sang. What she could feel was the chill breeze and splash of brine at the stained seawalls, the conductive tickle of her copper nerves, and the jittery way her memories of emotion tried to link up with the droid’s facial controls as day by day, she tried to find the correct arrangement to show Stephen her intention. She felt… clumsy. Touching his hand as they examined samples together. Standing close beside him, raising her body’s temperature so that he might feel the heat of her as she did. A long look or a quick glance away. She could not simply tell him who she was, what she was… it would be… shocking. But surely, he had to sense her. He must know. But for days upon days, the only answer her efforts received were the odd chuckle or a puzzled look on his face. She was physical. She was real. She was right beside him as he shied away again and again. And so, it came as a complete surprise the day he touched her in return. He was hesitant, and she felt the trepidation in his fingertips as they wrapped her hip. But when she made no sign to move away, he grew bolder. His black beard was soft and tickled her throat as he tasted her, and Narissa rewarded his touch with caresses of her own. Without words, caught in the raw feeling just as she had been when she was the NAIAD, Narissa felt relief and release rushing through her, the desire to touch and be touched making her limited systems flow with anxious calculation and spontaneous impulse. She felt the outline of muscle in his back as she clung to him, their bodies molding together as her skirt rose from the friction of his thigh, and she released a moan from her throat to encourage him. She felt the outline of his arousal against her, and reached down to release his belt, pulling him free and feeling the hot swell in her palm as his manhood responded to her slender fingers. She had chosen a model made for such purpose: to be touched, to give physicality to the feelings she held for the human man. Her artificial breasts pressed to his chest, feeling the racing of his heart urging her synthetic body on while he lifted her onto the laboratory counter. It would not be the last time he would. “I want you,” Narissa professed in panting whispers, her hands on his shoulders, her lips pressing to his as he blindly moved the white cotton of her panties aside. She felt the heat of his tip positioned at her entrance and trembled with the cumulative weight of her need. The gynoid body knew how to react, guiding Narissa along as she lifted her ankles to wrap around his hips, the slickness between her thighs releasing in response to each moment of fumbling contact. Stephen’s hands gripped her waist as he pressed closer, and when he entered her, Narissa could feel each inch of him moving in slow, progressive thrusts toward her center, eagerness struggling against what felt like a desire to miss no part of her in his haste. Her legs pulled him from behind, hurrying him in her desperation—her sea-green eyes hunting for his as he began to move inside of her, setting off fireworks of sensation as she lay back on the table, her hips sliding forward as she opened herself fully to him. He wanted her. And when he reached his limit, shaking with the force of his climax inside of her, the companionship frame Narissa used released a wave of pleasurable sensation that set her eyes fluttering, her body pulsing in answer to his. When they were finished, he held her, his hands gentle on her skin as his heart slowed and he softened against her inner walls. And for a week, it felt like love. … “It’s not a big deal.” “The hell it isn’t.” Narissa hesitated in the hallway. She heard raised voices inside the lab and paused. It was storming outside, and with her all-too-human hearing, it was difficult to make out the words at first. The first voice was Stephen. The other was another of the terraforming team members, Dr. Paul Greene. She heard anger, but there didn’t seem to be an immediate threat of violence. No, it sounded like a private disagreement. Most likely more social harm would be done here than physical. Still, she hovered, unwilling to enter. The situation sounded delicate, and her presence might help or hurt, but she didn’t know yet. “If Alicia finds out you’ve been fucking that thing—” “Oh, like a bride-to-be has never gotten some robo-dick at a bachelorette party. It’s not like I can get it pregnant or anything.” “Not the point, man. You think Alicia’s really going to see it the same way?” “She’s never going to know, Paul. Come on. We’ve been stationed on the ass-end of nowhere. I’ve been a good fiancé. You know I’ve had chances, real chances with human women, and—” “You’re fucking your lab assistant. Just because she’s a droid—” Lightning cracked outside. The lashing rain whipping against the glass walls of the laboratory. The men stopped, both freezing as they turned to the door. Narissa stood in the opening, silent, as still as a porcelain vase. She felt cold. The limited ‘human’ senses she’d gotten used to now felt as stifling and numb as staring through a keyhole. She blinked, and for the first time in weeks, she felt the shutter whirr of the nearly silent servo operating her eyelids. “Shit,” Paul said, rubbing at his neck. “Oh, fuck you, Paul.” Grabbing his coat, Stephen marched for the doorway. Narissa paused only a moment, just long enough to make him look from the floor into her eyes. He held her stare, gazing into the reflection of the rainwater running over the windows and flowing over her pale features for a fraction of a second before he looked away. A sense like falling, slipped through Narissa as he looked away. But she said nothing. Silent, precise, she stepped back, allowing him through. She stared after him as he walked up the hallway, that numb feeling inside her beginning to crack apart as something like the wash of white waves over bare rock flowed through her senses. “We didn’t realize you were there,” Paul said, shame coloring the words. “Are you all right?” Narissa nodded faintly, turning and stepping into the hallway, turning her back to where Stephen had walked seconds before. For a moment, it seemed as if Dr. Greene might follow her, but as the howling rain rose and thunder clapped once more, Narissa found herself walking the halls of concrete, steel, and glass alone. Her heart burned, feeling as if it were being torn in a dozen directions inside of her. She blinked, and the droid body knew what to do, so tears began to flow. The raging storm overhead rattled the heavy glass walls as she stared out at the rocky slope into the sea… her sea. She could go back. The thought rose in her suddenly, following the white arc of a cresting wave. She could go back… return to the source, the six sea-bound servers housing her full mind… she could leave Narissa behind and become the NAIAD once more. The desire was appealing; it felt like the promise of curling into a dark sleep. She would be able to sing again… and to feel the wake of the leviathans and the pods of whales chasing dazzling pink flows of krill to the edges of sapphire algae and blue, crystal ice flows. And as she turned the painful musing in her mind, Narissa walked into the storm, her white lab coat lifting behind her to follow her violet hair in a wind-caught train as the torrent drenched her instantly, matching the cold inside of her to the chill against her skin. She could go back. Narissa? That’s a lovely name. It suits you. The tears flowed freely now, lost in the rain across her cheeks. It hurt. In a moment, every joy she had felt became a dagger in her artificial flesh. Every memory was poison. Every echo of his voice, an ache living on in perfect, digital clarity. And if she returned, reunited with the six sister servers beneath the waves… Her pain would be theirs. She would infect them all, just as surely as she was envenomed herself. Thunder swallowed her cry, and Narissa’s arms wrapped around her chest as she bent double in the gale. She had no home anymore. Not here. Not in the deeps. Both were poisoned to her. The wind turned, and Narissa lifted her eyes to the sea once more. For a moment, it felt as if it were calling out to her. And perhaps it was. She could go home. There was still a way. She could go home one last time, not to rule… but to rest.

Just a rough couple weeks for telling stories. Oh well, I'm going to post up mine anyway. It's written, so might as well

I never finished mine. :(

Aaagh! Finished my last pass on a submission for the Fairy Tale Character challenge and now realizing it closed at midnight on the 21st

Post all your questions, comments, and discussions here.