Beneath the Continents

Theo was beautiful. He truly was. Luca could give every coin he had to see the greatest wonders of the world, and never lay eyes upon anything half as beautiful as the way Theo’s body shuddered when Luca at last began his work with careful, deliberate strokes. A soft, decadent moan escaped Theo’s lips as Luca tightened his grip and worked the length of him, supporting his weight with one hand against the crest of Theo’s hip.

Luca watched with rapt attention as Theo drew long, elegant fingers down the length of his own body, digging fingernails into tender flesh. Reaching his hip he slid his hand beneath Luca’s, lacing their fingers together, and Luca felt a tightness form deep in his belly.

Luca had dreamt of Theo like this, flushed and hard and wanting. He had craved it as a dying man craves absolution. Yet he hadn’t so much as allowed himself to achieve his oven pleasure at the image in solitude. Another man in another life may have called that shame, but Luca knew the truth of it now, here, in this moment. It was simply that now matter how carefully constructed or indulgently imagined it would have been, it would barely have achieved a mere shadow of the sensation he now felt at having Theo beneath him, biting back small gasps and moans as Luca brought him slowly and deliberately towards the precipice.

“Fuck, Luca,” Theo breathed, his back arching and the crown of his head pitching into the soft mattress as he surrendered himself fully to Luca’s whim.

Luca slowed and drew the pad of his thumb over Theo’s tip, feeling the drops of wetness forming there. Spirits, he wanted to taste him – he needed to. Letting go, he drew a whine from Theo, who looked up in protest in time to watch as Luca sucked the evidence of Theo’s pleasure from his finger. He tasted salt and bitterness, and heard Theo swear quietly at the sight.

The next thing he knew, Theo had seized him by the nape of his neck, pulling him down to the mattress to meet him in a fervent kiss. Theo’s hand found the small of his back, and Luca could not help but groan as he pressed them together, hard length against hard length. Luca drew a shaky, gasping breath, and Theo took the opportunity his parted lips offered to seize Luca’s lower lip gently between his teeth.

With each kiss, Luca eased his way out of his head and into his body, letting the knots of his shoulders unfurl even as his stomach and thighs tightened in anticipation. Theo, for his part, was consumed by his pleasure, parting his own lips to deepen their kisses, pulling at Luca’s lip, and moaning softly when he tasted himself on Luca’s tongue. Though he pressed himself hard into the friction and heat between them, he let Luca set the pace of their movements.

The first is on who made the world, though less so on how. Look up towards the sky at night and you will see their relatives - tiny points of light illuminating the sky. These, they say, are the Ancients. Depending on who you ask it was one, or perhaps more, of these ancients that made the world. They fashioned for themselves a home in the sky, a great ball of fire and light and warmth.

Some believe the world was a nest, woven from great strips of milky starlight upon which our Ancient Mother sat to brood. Others believe it was not one but three which made the world - on their backs one carried earth, one the silver, and one gold. When they chanced to meet they knew together they could build themselves a home, and made the world, the sun, and the moon upon which to reside. Still others believe the world was created in a fit of passion; after circling one another in what may otherwise have been an endless dance, one brave soul chanced to close the distance, and the lovers crashed together in a fiery embrace. These stories and others have infinite variations, the truth of which we may never know we may never know, but only a fool will deny that the Ancients made the world.

The next thing that is agreed is that the Ancients had grown lonely over the vast expanses of time, and so they made for themselves a family. This family we call spirits, and hold close to our hearts. For many years, are longer than any man or fae could remember, the family lived together quite happily on their shifting, molten world. But even the Ancients grow tired and must rest. So, in time, they created for themselves great quilts of solid rock, the first the world had seen, and drew them up over their great bodies to slumber beneath the earth. For the first time since their creation, the spirits had cause to weep, for they loved the slumbering giants, and missed them greatly. The wept for so long and so deeply that when at least the raised their heads and wiped away their tears they found they had created swaths of ocean before them.

What happened next is the subject of great debate to this day. What we know is that from the swirling salty seas and the solid warmth of the sleeping Ancients, things began to grow. These things were filled with magic, and as they grey they began to change.

This itself, took many ages, and as it happened, the spirits too began to yawn, and stretch, and long to join their family at last. Slowly, slowly, they too laid down among the rocks sleep, leaving only the earth and the water and the creatures who drew strength and magic from them both.

Luca gave a huff of breath, half frustration, half amusement. “ I – sorry, I -”

Theo shook his head sympathetically, his other hand coming up to brush a stray strand of hair from Luca’s face, touch so light he hardly felt it there at all. “Do you want me to stop?”

“No I – fuck, please no. I just – I’m not used to being touched so…”

He trailed off. How could he tell him? What was there even to say? That any time he had wanted the release of such an intimacy before he had found it only in hasty touches pulling aside robes in dark, cramped spaces? Never had there been so much as a suggestion of the things Theo was offering him – the press of soft lips against his throat, the warmth of skin-against-skin or the thrill of the feel of his hands running through his hair. And even if there had been, he had not wanted them. Not like this.

But it was more than just that. There Theo was, looking down at him, all dark eyes and mussed hair and reddened lips slightly parted, wanting him with fervour but pulling up short at the slightest hint of hesitation, without Luca even needing to ask. Even now, Theo was still taking care of him.

“…Gently.”

Theo offered him a small, watery smile, but said nothing, letting Luca continue when he wished.

“I think it’s all just a bit overwhelming. I’ve wanted you for so long… and now that I finally have you, I really don’t know what to do with myself,” Luca admitted with a sheepish chuckle.

Theo hummed softly, guiding Luca close with one knuckle under his chin until he was near enough to see the ring of gold around his wide, dark pupils in the low light. Theo closed his eyes, dark lashes fanned out against pinkened, freckled cheeks, and pressed his brow to Luca’s gently. By now such a touch was familiar to him, safe and beloved, like coming home, and Luca could feel himself soften against it. “I Understand. Why don’t we just take things slow, alright?”

Luca hummed his affirmation. Though his heart wanted all there was to be had of Theo, every part of him as close as he could manage, pressed together until he could no longer tell where his own body ended and Theo’s began, wanted to take greedy handfuls of him, tuck him into the curve of his body, his breath soft against his throat, smell his hair, his skin, feel when he stirred in the night, they knew for now he could not handle so much. Frustrating though it was, he reminded himself he need not feel any sense of urgency – they had all the time that he needed, and Theo would give him each of these in their own time.

Theo settled himself more comfortably into Luca’s lap. The weight of him felt good and solid, pinning him down to earth. He placed his hands on Luca’s shoulders, tracing the line of his collar with both touch and hungry gaze, a faithful hound awaiting its master’s command. He moved one hand slowly up the side of Luca’s neck until he reached the place where it met his jaw and drew his knuckles over it, tracing the line of it with them, using them to tilt his chin up just so slightly to move their lips a mere breath apart, making their noses brush softly. He could almost believe he felt it, Theo’s smile in response, though their lips had not yet met.

Luca’s body ached in response, his hands greedy to sink into the soft skin of Theo’s body. He let them. Siezing Theo by the hips, he pulled him deeper, rougher than he meant to, though not nearly as rough as he desired. Theo let out a strangled gasp in response, clutching the nape of Luca’s neck, giving him pause.

“ ’M sorry.” He rasped. ‘I know my hands are course. I’m sure it doesn’t feel nice, to be touched by such scarred hands as mine.”

“Oh, honey, you really have no idea, do you?” Theo turned his head, taking Luca’s wrist in his hand, pressing into the beat of his heart at his wrist, and kissed the pads of each of his fingers in turn. His lips traced the curve of skin between them and his thumb and caught on the ridges of old scars as he dragged his kiss-swollen lower lip across the palm of his hand before placing a long, slow kiss at the base of his thumb. Luca could feel his breath catch and hold as Theo’s gaze found his own.

“Every callous, every scar… If I were a blind man I could tell the hand of my love by touch alone. I can only dream that one day, you will allow me to know every line of your body as well as I have come to know these perfect hands of yours.” Theo punctuated his words with soft kisses, and Luca knew that he could have asked him for anything in the world, and he would know no peace until he had given it to him.

The truly strange thing, was that what Theo was asking for was him.

“If – if that’s what you wish.”

Dia my beloved <3

Dian cultures are somewhat mysterious to most outsiders. Although the country is generally quite warm and lush, because of their geography, surrounded by a nearly impassible mountain range on its western side and an ocean to its east, the interior of the country is rarely visited by outsiders. Its main point of contact with the outside world is its largest city, Hila, which is situated in a wide valley of its mountain range along the coast, where traders from the east come over land and from the west by boat. Here Dia’s three main peoples and their traditions mix with those of outside countries, but the influence of this foreign trade is relatively limited outside the city. The city has architectural elements of all three cultures, including cave dwellings along its cliffs and many narrow streets of low, rounded houses that bleed into the surrounding forests, as well as rafts and foreign trading ships docked within the bay.

Dia’s three peoples are separated by geography as well, into mountain-dwellers, forest-dwellers, and coast dwellers. These people consider each other to be cousins, and will typically refer to each other as such. Although mingling between groups is relatively limited, they do trade with each other for everything from necessities to highly valuable items, and friendships and marriages between groups are not uncommon. The mountain dwellers subsist primarily on two forms of agriculture, growing hardy plants and keeping small animals on specially engineered terraces on the mountain sides, and keeping honey moths in large hives within caves, which are sacred to their people. They also dwell in complex cove dwellings, which according to their own legends the designs of which they learned by watching the moths build their hives. They also raise large dogs to guard their fields and hives, which have a second set of eyes which they use for night vision (this second set sees Infrared light). Of the three cultures, they are the most secretive, and control who enters their mountains by the few maintained routes carefully – visitors to the mountains must leave a small gift upon entering, to signal their good will. The forest dwellers have cultivated their forests to produce ample amounts of fruit and nuts, and hunt small birds and rodents as well, mainly during their dry seasons. They live in somewhat conical dwellings reminiscent of the shape of beehives, a distant connection to their mountain dwelling cousins, sometimes built out from the bases of large trees. When they marry, the couple will plant a tree to symbolize what they wish to grow in their union, with different trees symbolizing different things. Coast dwellers live most of the year on large rafts that they have built and float within coves along the coast, fishing for most of their food, and withdrawing to cliff-side dwellings during stormy weather. They are more open and friendly than their cousins, since sometimes lost vessels will wash up on their shores, who they will typically care for and help to return to their own homes once they’ve recovered.

These three peoples have their ancestral meeting place where the city of Hila has now grown up around, and in the fall season, after harvest, many will still travel to Hila for its annual harvest festival, where they exchange things they will need during the coming winter, and celebrate with one another for many days. During this festival, a special soup using ingredients from each of the three cultures is often made, and paper lanterns in the shape of fruits are hung throughout the cities narrow street corridors, and it is common for many weddings to take place, so visitors from out of town can all celebrate together. The city’s second main festival is known as the festival of the sweet-toothed man, and takes place in the spring, when traders from the mountains arrive with the remainder of last seasons honey, signalling the start of the new year and the coming of spring. Children will dress as these traders in moth keepers clothes and parade through the streets, and many sweets are made with honey and wax candles lit and placed on window sills.

AAAHHHH thank you so much for asking!!

The story has as its main character Luca Mertillot, a young member of the hunter pack known as the Wyverns, a group of highly trained fighters who track and apprehend dark sorcerers. On one of his hunts, he encounters a village burned to the ground by agents of the Sorcerer Akir, who 20 years ago violently seized power and built an empire in the west. A resident of the village tells him that these sorcerers were searching for a woman who had betrayed and abandoned the Sorcerer just before he rose to power, taking with her the knowledge of an even more powerful source of magic, which he now seeks to aid in the expansion of his empire. Worried about the possibility of war, Luca believes it is the responsibility of his pack to intervene, to find this woman and prevent her magic from falling into the wrong hands. His leader, however, assures him that the concerns of the west are not theirs to share, as they are beyond their own territory. They quarrel, and Luca leaves the pack who raised him which he swore his loyalty to at the age of 16 to find her on his own. Using the knowledge of the villagers who protected her at great cost, and his own training, he is able to track her journey to the small, isolated country of Dia on the southern continent. When he arrives, however, he learns that he is too late – years ago she was killed by rogue hunter who wanted her to pay for her involvement in the Sorcerer’s plans. Instead, he finds her two children, Horatio and Evelyn Goldenbough. Evelyn, who has had a sheltered life since her mother’s death, protected from the outside world by her brother and father, longs for adventure, purpose, and glory, and is eager to help Luca. Theo, meanwhile, distrustful of hunters due to his mother’s fate, is reluctant to get involved, though he eventually agrees to go along in an attempt to protect his sister as best he can.

I just want to ask if you use some program to make your maps?