#knightengale

It's a few days later that she approaches Thaisha in return, offering her four small thin pieces of metal, each one a semi-circle, no bigger than the tip of her pinkie, and asking if they would work.

It does not escape Thaisha's notice that the metal is such that even she has not worked with before. And that the veil that covers her friend's face is just the littlest bit smaller than it was the day before.

It takes her the better part of a week to properly shape them into simple rings, and she suggests waiting until the next town, but Vaelus is eager, and says she'd rather do it in the woods, under the light of Ilumi's Blanket, so she can always look up and remember the moment.

Julien and Occtis curl up one on each side of her, fingers sliding over her skin as Thaisha knelt between her legs, her hands steady as a drumbeat as the needle slides through her clitoral hood. The small ring follows after it, a touch of magic fusing it together smoothly, and another nudging the healing just a bit. Not too much, or the ring would be rejected, just enough that she can lean down to soothe sore skin with her tongue.

Julien demands his that same night to match hers, although the actual process turns out to be quite different. He squirms so much just from being cleaned up that Thaisha laughingly threatens to pin him down. With his cock her hand she couldn't possibly miss his reaction to that, and then idle threat becomes reality, Occits holding him in his arms, Vaelus pinning down his legs, and Thaisha kneeling at his side, needle in her hand again.

Occtis doesn't quite know what makes his knight pull and shout so as the needle presses in. He understands pain, but surely Julien has endured much more without being restrained. He doesn't mention it though, just holds him closer and tries not to think why it's so easy to get hard like this, and why he wishes it was his hands doing the hurting. He's pretty sure he doesn't want to actually hurt his knight? But then why does it feel like this to hold him while he cries out in pain?

It doesn't seem to bother Thaisha or Vaelus the same way, they tucked him between them when they were done, Thaisha soothing him like she does sometimes when their bickering tips over into sex, when she's mean to him in ways Occtis can only watch and try so hard not to think about later.

He clings to her so tightly after.

It's a few days later when it's his turn, the ring placed higher, right at the bottom of his scar, with most of the ring unseen, just a little sparkle in his skin. It doesn't hurt much at all, but he likes how each of them reach for it, finger brushing over the metal, warming it in a way that travels under his skin.

He did know that sometimes, late at night, he'd reach down and touch it, and the connection to Vaelus and Thaisha was of great comfort.

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Occtis was allowed to do Thaisha's. She said he had the steady hands for it, with a look in her eye that even he knew meant good-trouble.

She took him on her lap, not putting her cock inside him, now wouldn't be a good time to try that for the first time, but he could feel right there as he took one breast in his hand and carefully pushed the needle through the nipple under her guidance.

No one had asked about the ring in her other nipple, that he was aware of. Occtis wondered if anyone else knew its mate was still with Halandil Fang. He wondered what it meant, if anything, that their ring was in a similar place.

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It was in the middle of the night, during the changing of the watch. Neither Vaelus nor Occtis truly slept, so they would let their mortal companions rest while each of them would watch half the night. They'd gotten into the habit of spending a few moments with each other as they swapped, a quieter company that more often than not was mostly soft aimlessly touches. Occtis loved running his fingers over the scars that ran most of her body, and some nights she would tell him the stories of how she got them, in soft, soothing tones, a bedtime story for a beloved undead boy.

"You could add to their number," she offered one night in the same quiet voice. "It might be nice."

It was hard to school his face to horror rather than interest.

"Oh don't tell me you've never thought of it?" She teased lightly, her eyes staring out into the night.

"I, uh...." There was no world in which Occtis could frame an appropriate response to that in any time frame that was under an hour. ".... Have you?"

"Thought about it? Yes. Done it?" She sighed, pulling him closer, although her gaze never waivered. Occtis liked that she didn't look at him. "No, never. It would have been sacralige, you see, to marr one of Her carefully crafted works of art."

She handed over a knife. "Such a blessing it would be, to given a first time, from someone like you."

It was small, and not particularly deep. But Thaisha promised him it would scar. It ran a few inches on the inside of her thigh, right where Occtis liked to liked to rest his head. Even when it healed, he could feel it against his his cheek when he settled in. It was one of the first places that that he felt was his, like he belonged... like he was allowed to be there.

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Of course when Julien found out, he had pouted for days before Occtis figured out what he wanted. There were some days he wished his knight was better with words. He had taken some more time this time, just him and Julien in a tent one night, and had carved four deep lines on his hip and watched the blood run down his leg. Right where his hand would grip when he fucked him. Right where he could touch him through his clothes without drawing much attention. Right where Thaisha would grab him when she took him to bed, a line that was just Occtis would be between them, part of them.

"I'll give you one more for each of my family you kill," he whispered that night in his knights ear, a dark promise as he held him close and stroked him to completion. He hoped it wasn't his imagination that Julien's cries were louder than normal.

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Julien had refused when Vaelus had offered the same to him, pointing out that they all now how each other's marks... other than his. He was content, he said, to leave such marks as he could with his mouth and his teeth, ones that would fade within a week, or the first time one had to be healed after battle.

He was not like the others, he pointed out, when Thaisha had cornered him later. He appreciated what they had give him, but could not return the favor. He was not a druid beholden only to the Old Path, not an elf moving on from a dead goddess, not a young noble who was estranged from his family.

He was a Davinos. And as much as his family thought otherwise of him, while he lived that meant something, while there a single member of House Royce alive that meant something, and he would not leave such a mark on another. His lady may have given Thaisha leave to his body, and she may have extended it to the others, but the return was not necessarily true.

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