Zuri's Journeys

Alric's hands trailed up Zuri's hips, resting on the upper curve as he leaned in to kiss at her neck.  He paused there, lips resting on her skin, absentmindedly contracting every few seconds, and she knew he watched her as she worked.

"Come to bed," he said, his hands tightening on her.

She ignored him.  The stool she sat upon was a small thing, too small for him to displace her comfortably.  Too short for him to stand behind her as he was without having to stoop awkwardly.  But he persisted, touching her, and she felt something nauseous and needy rising in her stomach, down deep.

He was watching what she was doing.

"Zuri."

His hair tickled the side of her face, and she paused long enough to push it away.  He caught her hand, pulling at it.  She resisted, shifting on the stool, leaning forward and away from him.  It was dark in the room, dark enough that she knew he couldn't really see what she was doing.  He was a hyur, after all.  He didn't have a fraction of her moonkeeper night vision.

The hand wrapped around her own tightened, and he tugged at it, again.  "You're renewing that trade contract tomorrow morning, aren't you?"

He knew what she was doing.  She couldn't tell if he resented her for it, or was worried for her.  Neither was appropriate.  Not to what they were to each other, not in her mind.  "I miss the moon," she said.

"Isn't that why you gave yourself three suns before you need to go again?"

She had no reply for him, and wasn't interested in concocting one.  The quill quivered in her hand, the one free of him, though she knew, knew he wanted to take it up, take it away from her.  She kept writing.

"What happened?"  His voice had changed.  It had gone quieter, soft and full of edges that threatened to cut her if she wasn't careful.

It was his fault.  It was always his fault.  The careful dance between them, the passion that fell into coldness every time they met, pleasure outweighing the pain of each encounter.  They were always explosive, the yearning for the heat always overwriting the way each visit ended.  And yet, whenever she traveled to La Noscea, she always found him.  He always welcomed her in.  It was their routine, their pattern: a blessing and curse, one they never quite talked about or acknowledged, just rooting around the edges of the thing in frustration and inevitability.

Like now.

"It's her again," he persisted.  "Isn't it?"

She'd never told him just how closely the color of his hair matched Suva's.  She'd never told him that he was almost exactly her height.  And certainly, she'd never told him that when they embraced she closed her eyes and imagined it was Suva's arms around her, Suva's lips, Suva's fingers, Suva's skin and heat and need.  For her.  

Zuri rocked forward, the quill spilling from her fingers as she yanked her hand away from Alric's, covering her face with both, needing his touch, hating it, hating herself, hating Suva.  "Go sleep," she told him, because right then...

His hand fell upon her shoulder, and he pulled her back, into him, coming down to his knees to wrap her in a rough embrace.  Gods, sometimes she swore he even smelled like her, like her Suva.  Fresh air and green things, just that hint of woody spices. Her breath went shaky, and he squeezed her, knowing and unknowing, far too helpful, far too sympathetic.

Once, when they had gone drinking together, after they'd fucked, she'd told him a little bit about Suva.  He'd been asking questions, and she'd been sleepy and satiated, spilling secrets without much thought to it, uncaring in the end because she'd thought he didn't matter.  Each time she told herself was the last, that she shouldn't come back.  It was always the same thing.

His mouth fell upon her neck again, lips open, and she felt his tongue in the precise hollow that made her shiver.  He was a careful study.  He was a thoughtful lover.

Zuri stood, pulling away from him.  He stood with her, hands uncompromising as he turned her to him, against him.  He stirred to life against her body, despite the fact that his seed yet smeared her between her legs, their last moment of happiness before a different need had driven her from his bed, to the desk, to the paper and the quill and another chance, a new chance, a new hope that maybe, this time, her words would reach Suva.

It was always the same.

Despite herself, she responded to his touch, to the way his hand curled down her back and over her rear, cupping and squeezing, pulling her tighter yet against him.  She inhaled his scent, closing her eyes, imagining...

His teeth closed on the side of her neck, and she growled.  His answer was to hook his hand lower, sliding it down her thigh and pulling it up, opening her to him. Her breath came out of her in a rush, and he bit harder, sucking at her flesh, encouraging her head to dip back.  He wanted her to give in, and she resented his ability and her reaction to it.  She scratched him.  He was naked, without protection against the anger in her fingers, the way she pressed her nails into him and dragged them over his skin, opening his flesh to her the way he opened hers to him.

He would leave her bruises, and she would leave him bleeding.

At least they met as equals.

He pulled her up, fumbling them around the stool -- kicking it away as he lifted her and pushed her up against the desk.  It bit into her ass, and then her legs were around him and he was suddenly in her, jarring her up to her teeth, making the table and everything she'd worked so hard on rattle and quake behind her.  

"The ink," she snapped, shoving at him, twisting to try to take it up and cork it, but his hands were there, shackling her wrists and bringing them back to her front, his teeth free of her and bared too close in her face.  He wanted her to look at him, she could feel it, like the quickening of her own blood, the wavering of his: the moment that always came between them.

He shifted his hips and she moaned, despite herself, but he wasn't done.  "What happens to your letters?"  There was something in his voice, something mean.

He pushed into her, and she hissed, her eyelids fluttering with a response she actively tried to suppress.  She got one hand free, and pushed at his chest, hooking her fingers into him so he felt it, so he'd be marked with it, so he'd feel something about it after she was gone and the bitterness settled in for them both.

This time, when he wrenched her hand away, he squeezed hard enough for it to hurt, and she hissed at him.  

"Do you ever get any back?"  His voice was harsher, his own growl texturing it beyond the promise of warmth he'd first shown her.

She didn't care.  

The ink tipped over behind her with a clank of glass against wood, as she leaned back and pulled her knees back and back, getting her feet against his stomach and shoving him.  Now, she was angry.  There was a brief pang of emptiness as he left her, but it was subsumed by her own heat as she pushed herself off the desk, following up on him with a flimsy hook to the gut.  She'd never been much of a scrapper, and he deflected it with the knowledge of someone who'd pissed her off one time too many, pushed her beyond any capacity of reasoning.  It wasn't fair, but he didn't even try to pretend to fight fair, spitting half-truths that hit their target every damn time.

"Does she even care?"

It had been a mistake to come, and she wished she'd never even met him.  She twisted back around, taking up the spilled bottle of ink and hurling it at him.  It hit him high on the cheekbone, him unable to duck fast enough.  She'd wanted to hit him on the nose, but the spray of ink was satisfying enough, as was his grunt of pain.

"She doesn't belong in your mouth," Zuri snapped, tongue tripping over the words so they almost sounded slurred.  "You don't get to speak of it."

"You came to me."  His voice had gone cold, and they met each other glare for glare.

"You let me in."

"You wanted to stay."

"Not everything is about you!"

They were suddenly close again, trembling, shaking, touching by virtue of being too close, two predators wanting to rip into each other and take away what they needed without giving anything in return.

"This is my home," and his hand was on her hip, squeezing, yanking her up against him.

"You knew," her hand was in his hair, pulling his face down to hers.

Because he had.

There was no more space or breath for words, because they were ripping at each other, trying to get what they needed before the other stopped, before something fragile was finally broken, and one of them would be left with infinitely less.

This time, when he pulled her up, she helped him inside.  And once he was inside, he stayed there, each thrust fully seated in her, making both of them noisy and needy in new ways.  

The empty spaces felt less empty when he was inside of her, filling her, stretching her past reason and loneliness.  It wasn't what she wanted, not really, but the pleasure of it sang to her, and she let it lull her.  She focused on the smell of him, the  feel of his hair beneath her fingertips, the soft grunts and groans he made.  She languished in the touch of his skin against hers, the sweat that beaded both of their skin, the false connection they made, over and over.

Sometime between her against him and against the desk, she found herself against the wall, its coolness a shock against her heated, slick skin.  He pounded her, his face buried teeth-deep in her shoulder as he sought to find his own fulfillment in her body.  She'd exhausted herself on him, each wave of her own emptying her out until she was pleasantly numb, content to let him hold her up while she tore up his back.  And then she just held him against her, letting him stir up her insides, listening to it and smelling it with her eyes closed.

Each moment was a struggle not to think of Suva, not to think at all.  

Eventually they wound up back on the bed, mostly, sprawled over it so he had one leg planted firmly on the ground and her feet dangled mid air: her back to his front while he fucked her with all he had.  He half pushed, half dragged her more onto the bed, both of his knees cratering the mattress behind her as she felt him swell, felt his pace stagger and break, felt his growling groans as he pressed his chest against her back.

They collapsed forward, and she felt irritation at the weight of him against her back, at the fact that she was in his bed, again, despite her own intentions otherwise.  Frustration welled up in her, as she thought about the ink that had spilled, unsure if her letter was now ruined, and knew that she would find time, somewhere else, and start over again.  Carefully.  She was never more careful than when she was writing to Suva.

"You have to stop," he whispered into her hair, so low she wasn't sure for a moment if she'd heard it.

She went still as he curled his body around hers, holding her.

There was a fury in her that made it hard to breathe.

She pressed her face into the blankets, feeling it ooze out of her until she gave a great shuddering breath, and his hands tightened against her.

"It isn't good," he murmured some time later, when her trembling had subsided. "It's poisoning you."

She pretended to be asleep until he gave in, too.  His home had become poison to her, the air so thick she nearly choked on it.  When he was deeply asleep, she got herself free of him, dressed, and packed until there would be nothing of her left but the smell of their sex.

She left without saying goodbye.

The desert was the ugliest thing Zuri had ever seen.  She stared out at the road, dismayed in a way she couldn't fully explain, and looked back over her shoulder into the thinning trees, the edge of the border of the Twelveswood.  This was Eastern Thanalan, according to what Elder Arhus had told her, and it would be her first stop on her journey into the outside world.  

Zuri had never wanted to see the outside world.  Her home had been all that she'd ever wanted to experience, with all the things she ever could have wanted.  The panic was bubbling up in her chest again, and she planted her feet solidly on the dirt road, breathing in and out, slowly.  She was a hunter of her people.  Crying at something so silly wouldn't behoove her.  She was a representative of her tribe, now.  Even as an exiled member.  

Her lower lip quivered, and she tightened her belly, firming herself against it.

Suva.

Dirt crunched as she took a step forward, and then another.  It was necessary.  She was necessary, even if the trees were forbidden to her now.  Her tribe was small, and quickly outpaced by the rest of the world.  Without someone procuring new and better tools, and technology, to make their own craftswomen more relevant, to help them extract every last bit out of the small allotment of forest's bounty they were allowed, they would be lost.  She knew that.  They weren't farmers.  They wouldn't be absorbed into the larger towns and the scar on the land that was Gridania.  No.  

She resettled her pack and kept walking, numbly absorbing the details of the changing landscape.  She could feel the edges of the forest, feel when she left its shade -- even though there was still some scant trees left.  No, this was no longer part of her home.  It was just...dead things, and dryness, and heat, and dirt.  Lots of dirt.

Eventually she came upon a small settlement beside a bridge.  The wind was picking up, which was a relief; it was hot.  Uncomfortably so: the wide expanse unbroken by anything but small rocks and shrugs was dastardly.  The breadth of it made her skin crawl.  Even as she wandered up to the edge of the cliff and looked down, she couldn't see anything that would give her any reason just why anyone would want to be out there.  Lack of choice?  It looked depressing.  Brown, and dead, and dirty.  Not the good kind of dirty, like the thick loam on the forest floor, but just...dirt dirty.

She grew tired of staring down into the abyss and ambled over to the settlement, where she found a smattering of people.  She'd successfully avoided people thus far, not wanting to talk to outsiders -- a limited luxury, since that would become her new task in life.  Her mother had told her she was still hunting for the tribe, just for different things.  Without being allowed to come home.  Unless she was successful and proved herself, again, then, maybe...

Maybe.

Zuri gritted her teeth and approached one of the groups, assessing each with quick, furtive glances.  She did not think they would attack her, but outsiders were strange, and sometimes fey.  Plus, Zuri would not be surprised to learn that being out under so much sun in so much open space had made them crazed.

There were three of them.  They stood  far distant from each other, at least a fulm, so Zuri wondered how they could really understand what each other had to say.  None of them looked at her as she approached, or questioned her right to walk there, or even seemed curious about who she was and why she stood there, slowly coming closer.  They were strange.  She knew what they must be, by their physical aspects: the tiny one was of the small folk.  The one with the hideously rounded ears and stature near her own was likely one of the midlander folk.  The last another of the midlander.  Their clothing was plain, but to her eye finely, finely woven.  Amazingly so, surpassing anything like what her people wore.

Her fingers itched to touch it, but as she closed in on them she finally attracted their attention: three fulms, two, and there was plain hostility in their gazes, and in the raised voice of the midlander woman.

"Can I help you?"  Sharp.  High.  Sneering.

Zuri nodded, curiosity in the curve of her shoulders and the upward tilt of her chin, fingers spreading wide in entreaty as she reached to touch the woman's sleeve.

Her hand was slapped away.

"Excuse you!" The woman said.

Zuri tipped her head to the side, ears folding back in uncertainty.  Excuse her?  What was she being excused for?  She held her hand to her chest, wondering if perhaps she had missed a nonverbal greeting-statement.  She leaned in, to touch shoulders with the woman, and this time was given a harsh shove.

Even with the weight on her back from her pack and her bow, she didn't stumble.  She did take a step or two back.  Perhaps she was to touch foreheads?  She made an apologetic grimace, and stepped in again.

"Whoa," the midlander man said, even as the woman said in sharp and strident tones: "back off!"

"It's one of the forest savages from the Shroud," the small one said, his eyes full of something sharp enough to cut.

Zuri reached out again, in apology, and the  woman backed up behind the other midlander male.  "Gods," she said. "Make it go away."

"What is it you want?" He asked.

"Looking for handouts, or to sell some ratty hides, I've no doubt," the small one yet sneered.

Zuri frowned at him and made a dismissive gesture.  "I don't know your greeting."

"What did it say?" The woman asked.

"I think she said hello."

"What do you want?"  The midlander male had puffed his chest out, standing before the female as if protecting a babe.  Perhaps the woman was sick, and that was why she was hiding.

Zuri stepped back, not wanting to catch the illness.  "This is Camp Drybone?"

The small one laughed.  "Camp Drybone?  Hardly.  You've more distance to cover.  That way."  He pointed  westward.

Zuri turned her eyes to follow the ribbon of road until it disappeared into the distance, over a small dip in the land.  She could make something out in the distance that was, perhaps, a town.  Or a bit of funny shaped rock.  She wouldn't put it past the desert to be shaped oddly.

"There?" She asked, pointing.

"'Swhat I said, isn't it?"

She considered asking for a guide, and then considered them, and their attitude.  She couldn't blame them; if she had met them within her own territory she'd be like as not tempted to put arrows in them.  But they, despite their obvious scorn and mistrust, didn't pull weapons on her.  Perhaps this was a trading post, then. Perhaps they were stupid and slow, like the farmed animals in the Gridanian villages.

Perhaps this was life now, and she should get used to it.

She shouldered her pack, nodded to them, and started walking.  She learned two things on that long, dusty walk to Camp Drybone.  One, she needed to carry much more water for the trip; and two, that the sun really was her worst enemy.  She'd been dehydrated before, but never quite enough to push a headache from oppressive to dizzying.  There was no water, anywhere, and as she stumbled into the camp (it should have been called Village Drybone, or Town Drybone; camp it was not), she could have kissed  a talisman to the Old Ones in thanks.

She didn't feel that way for long.

There were too many people, to start.  The sun was following its descent down, which was the only good thing about the place.  The mix of people seemed so foul compared to what she'd seen before.  Some wore fine garments, others poor.  And so many scents!  It nose-blinded her, made her eyes water up with the various unfamiliar stenches.  Chocobo, under it all, combined with body odor, refuse, odd spices, food, waste, and something almost dusty and stale.  

There was too much talk.  It was hard to keep track of, as she slowly wandered in, catching snatches and snippets, each person more guarded and sneering than the last.  Out of this tangle of flesh she was supposed to find a single person, some hyur, in and amongst the rising walls and cut off buildings that felt like suffocation writ large.

Zuri lasted a quarter bell.  She asked a total of four people directions to the person she'd been instructed to find, and had been met with hostility in a variety of forms, or else questions she didn't have the answers to.  Before she knew it she was up above the camp, looking down into it, fingers rustling through the arrows in the quiver at her hip.  Thinking.  Watching.  Feeling the sun beat on her, feeling her headache growing worse, smelling all the awful things...

Before she knew it, she was dizzy and leaning heavily against a rock, panting.

Before she knew it, she'd passed out.

Never had Zuri truly considered herself to be a stupid individual, or especially lacking in common sense.  And yet, when she awoke feeling as if a creature had crawled into her ear and now attempted to claw its way out from within her skull and out through her eyes, she realized how stupid she'd been.

The sun had dried her out.  She'd let it dry her out, despite advance warnings, despite the powerful thirst and dryness she'd felt.

Grimacing, she let it go as she pushed herself towards wakefulness.  She lay on something soft, in a cool, dark room.  Gods bless for that, even though opening her eyes was difficult.

"You must be Zuri," a man said, his voice terribly grave, a distant rumble around the edges not unlike thunder.

She managed to crack her eyes open into slits, and groaned for her effort.

"Here," he said, something pressed against the back of one of her clenched hands.

She sniffed, and smelled something like an elder's concoction.  Sniffed again, and smelled too much about the man, the room, and knew she was still in Camp Drybone.

The cup held a tonic, one she knew, and she fumbled it into her hands and drained it.  She was already incapacitated, and if he'd wanted her dead, it would've been easy enough.  After that, he pressed a cup of water into her hands, and then another, until she could drink no more and refused the next.

She curled up into a little ball, while the man sat there, unspeaking and patient, and sought out sleep once more.  The pain in her head was too much for anything else.

The next time she awoke, he wasn't there, and she had a raging need to void her bladder.  A quick search found a heavy, lidded pot that smelled of previous uses, and she used it.

The room was incredibly quiet.

It was also incredibly empty.  There was a pitcher of water -- which she drank -- her pack and hunting items, the bed she'd slept on, and other things she knew the city-goers used.  She hated it.  She hated the closed in walls, the overlapping smells, and most of all its emptiness.  Her ears near rang with the silence, her head filled with the sound of her own breath and her own thoughts, devoid of nearby chatter and children and any number of necessary things.

It was just empty.

Everything was just empty, now.

A faint reprise of her earlier pain built behind her forehead, and she forced herself to take a deep breath, stepping towards the door; she'd rather face the Camp than spend more time in the mausoleum that was the room she'd been placed in.

Suva.

She opened the door, and stepped out to meet the man it was her duty to find.

That was all that she had left.

It was time.

Zuri stood in a circle before the bonfire, ringed by tribeswomen.   Suva was beside her, tall and regal and strong.  Zuri vibrated with her excitement, striving with all her might to maintain sobriety as her mother stepped before her.  She held the huntsday bowl in hand: a heavy thing, carved of some dense and unknown wood, embellished with tiny miqo'te women wielding lance and bow.  Time had worn some of it away, despite loving care.

Its insides were stained dark with pigment, from (as the legends went) centuries of use during huntsday ceremonies.  In the darkness of night, Zuri couldn't really differentiate between the colors; the firelight tainted everything with a warm glow.  Not that it mattered, but it was the first time she'd gotten to see the bowl up close.

Today, she'd become an adult.

She was ready.  Her confidence in her training, in her applied skills, was strong; even so, nervousness and fear chewed at the edges of her excitement.  The weight of centuries of tradition, of trials, of ceremony settled across her shoulders as Suva's mother stepped up alongside her own, dipping her fingers into the bowl and drawing the huntsign upon Suva's face: a mark unique to heritage and family, passed down from mother to daughter in an unbroken line.

Too much time and too little passed at once before Zuri's mother gave over the bowl to Suva's mother, and dipped her fingers in to paint her own mark upon Zuri's face.  She stared at her mother's face as she worked, feeling the love and care and satisfaction and happiness with each mark laid upon her face.  Her mother took joy in her, and it filled her near to bursting.  It was so hard to stay still, so hard to not dash for her bow and run into the trees whooping and hollering and whistling her joy to Menphina and Her moon.

By dint of will alone, she stood still, nostrils flaring with her excitement.  Zuri's mother put the bowl down before the fire, and Zuri and Suva sat across from it.  They would be huntpartners, now, a bonded duo who would rely upon each other when they went deep into the wild places to test their luck against bigger and more ferocious game.  It was necessary to the tribe's survival; legends went that once, when game was plenty and the Old Ones undisturbed by the tribe's small forays into their lands, there had been no need for huntpartners.  But with the advent of the elezen and Gridania, everything had changed.  And now they were being honored, declared strong and skilled enough to take on the mantle of responsibility to feed the tribe

It awed Zuri.

Together, she and Suva dipped their fingers into the bowl, and reached across it to each other.  They painted each other in their practiced marks, marks that would belong to them and them only, perhaps to be passed down to some other deserving pair if their skills were great enough and their legend grew.  The thought of it tingled across Zuri's arms and down her back, chased by a sense of guilty excitement.   It was wrong of her to wish to become legend, it was greedy and selfish, but she couldn't help it.  There was an echo of it in Suva's eyes, as their fingers brushed over each other's skin: flashes of impishness that they shared in secret, buoyed by each other. Suva was amazing.  Zuri was so gladdened and pleased that the elders had seen true, and paired them. 

Around them, their fellow tribeswomen began to chant and beat the drums.  There would be throat singing soon; as Zuri was to begin to prepare herself to leave on a long journey, she would not be allowed to participate.  There was a slight sting at that: she was good at throat singing.  But it was swept away under the tide of her excitement.   Nothing would get her down.  The night belonged to her, and she to it.   Together, she and Suva rose, taking turns painting each others' legs and backs.  They moved faster now, keeping rhythm with the tribe's song. When it, and they, were finished, it all stopped: a singular drum beat carrying it to its close.  Then, the elders approached, bearing the gifts from the tribe's master craftswomen.

"You are unworthy," Elder Icah, the eldest, said.  Suva and Zuri glanced at each other and bowed their heads, holding out their hands.

"You are nothing without your tribe.  You are lost without your sisters and mothers.  You would be empty without your kith and kin."

Together, two of the youngest elders stepped forward, bestowing bows, bow cases, quivers, and arrows: the first possessions that either girl would truly own.

"You will be unworthy to the task at hand.  For you are hunters for the tribe.  Be filled with us, heart and soul, as you take your journey, and know that you will never fully fill the bellies of your tribe."

A third elder brought forward the Elderbowl: simply but expertly wrought of ivory.  The eldest dipped her thumb to it, and pressed it once to Zuri's forehead, and once to Suva's.  If their hunt was successful and accepted by the elders, they would each receive the traditional teardrop between and above their eyebrows to signify their status as contributing adults to the tribe.

"Bellies," the elder continued, voice dry, "are never truly full.   But your hearts and souls will be always filled, for we will always be there.  If you prove yourself fit for the task of the endless hunts for this tribe, you will in turn be found worthy to fill the heart and soul of your tribe.  Then, and always, you will join the huntsong, and be eternal amongst Menphina's stars."

Silence fell, and the drums began anew: the rhythm of hunting.   Zuri and Suva geared up.  Elders brought forward a mash, hot and filling, and spoon fed the two girls.

"This is the last meal you take as children.  This is the last meal you take without giving in return.  When you return, you will feed your tribe."

Rations were brought and packed away as the two girls finished eating, bowing their heads in gratitude.

The huntsong began, and Zuri felt her blood rushing through her, energy racing and causing her to shift her weight side to side in her eagerness.  Beside her, Suva did the same, face a mask of fierce enthusiasm.

"Are you ready, Zuri?"

"Yes, Elder Icah."

"Are you ready, Suva?"

"Yes, Elder Icah."

"You are so bonded.  May you rely upon each other, and your tribe, and return to us with meat, and be found worthy."

Tension hummed, the two girls poised on the brink of something wondrous: a chasm of unknown gaping before them and ready to be explored.  Zuri found Suva's hand, and squeezed, and Suva squeezed hers in return.  The huntsong swelled around them, filling their bones. They waited for the final words, the words that would send them out.  Waited, as Elder Icah made them wait: their last reminder that they were part of something greater, and they did not go out alone.

"Do not stop until you are beyond the sounds of your sisters' voices, until you can no longer feel the drum."

Zuri panted, feeling her body heat with excitement, and the need to move.

"Now, go."

The circle opened, and the two girls bounded out of it, carried along with the boundless energy of youth.

His grip on her thighs hurt.  Zuri reached down, taking a fistful of his hair, and pulled.

"Do you want me to squeeze your balls like that?"

He looked up at her, grinning like she'd just made the best joke he'd ever heard, and she bared her teeth at him.  He released one thigh, reached up to grab the back of her neck, and brought her to him.  He bit her lip, the sodding fiend, and she growled at him.  She bit him back -- her teeth were sharper, after all, than some buck-toothed roegadyn -- and he moaned.  He moaned.  

She jerked back, startled, and he pulled her back in.  He bit again, harder.  So she bit back, harder.

He moaned again.

She pushed away, staring at him, brows furrowed.

"Wot?"  He asked, reaching for her.

She evaded.  She brought her hand to her lips, and found blood there.  "You made me bleed!"  

He stared back.  They stood there, in tableau, clothing either on the floor or severely askew, flushed and breathing hard.  The petting had been heavy, but not so strange, just a little more...enthusiastic than usual.  Zuri cast back over their initial meeting, the flirtation, the suggestions, the trip back...none of it had indicated that he wanted to fight.  Really, well, he was aroused.  That was obvious enough.

"Lass," he said, his brows furrowing.

Oh, his arousal seemed to be flagging.  She stared at that instead, fascinated.

"Lass," he said again, some hint of annoyance in his voice.  She looked back up.  "Don't tell me ye ain't never had rough sex."

Zuri frowned at him.  Of course she'd had rough sex.  But Suva had never made her bleed, or left marks on her.  To do such was an insult.  "You made me bleed," she accused, again.  "Sex doesn't involve bleeding.  Well," she felt her face heat, "not unless it's...."  she looked down, towards her own groin.  The implication was obvious enough.

He made a strangled sound, and then began chuckling.  She did not appreciate it, glaring hard enough to make sure that he understood her lack of appreciation.  She started to pick up what pieces of clothing she'd been fool enough to take off.

"Now hold on, lass.  Have ye really never..."

She narrowed her eyes at him.  They were all but slitted now, her ears back, tail stiff and fur on end.  He studied her, in return, a damnable smirk still affixed to his lips in a way that made her want to make him bleed.  Stupid man.  He leaned back, sitting down on his haunches so their differences in height wasn't quite so drastic.

"Would ye like to learn?"  The tone of his voice had changed.  Softer.  Still amused, but there was some gentleness there that completely belied his unreasonable attack.

Zuri lifted her upper lip at him.

"Sex can get rough, y'know," he persisted.  "Real rough."

"I've no wish to let you tarnish my honor," she hissed.

"Honor?  Wots yer honor got t'do with this?"

"I'll not let you tarnish me without reprisal."

He grinned.  "Well good.  That's th'point."

"I've no wish to be tarnished in the first place!" She snapped.

"And 'ow ye know that, huh?"

She stared at him.

"Now, I don't know wot ideas ye got rollin' up in that head o' yers, but if ye ain't mixed playin' rough wi' yer fuckin', how ye know ye ain't want it?"

Silence.  It drew out between them, as Zuri glowered at him, thinking.  He let her think, rocking back on his heels.  As far as Zuri could tell, he was no longer hard at all, though with him crouching like that, it was hard to tell.  While she was pretty sure she didn't want to bleed during sex, there had been a number of new experiences she'd encountered after being exiled from the Twelveswood, and her tribe.  She hadn't wanted any of them, of course; she wanted her home.  Nonetheless, there were some things she'd enjoyed.  Begrudgingly.

"I don't trust you," she said.

"Lass, how often d'ye go about lettin' strange men lead ye to their rooms?"

She flushed.  Decided right then and there that he wasn't sticking anything in her.  Not any more.  She started to dress, ignoring his exasperated sigh.  He'd done it to himself.  This was his fault, not hers.

"A'right.  Fine.  I won't bite ye like that no more.  But I don't got not problems gettin' bit."

She paused with one boot halfway on, eyeing him.  "Why by the twelve would I want to bite you?"

He eyed her.  "Coz I like it."

She frowned.  "Why?"

"Coz I do."

Stalemate.  She eventually gave up putting on the boot, turning to face him, folding her arms.  "What if I don't want to bite you?"

He shrugged.  "Then don't."

She scowled.  "Then what's the point?"

"How d'ye feel about bruises, then?"

She gaped at him.

"I ain't gonna hit ye or naught, lass, stop givin' me that evil eye.  Jes...toss ye 'round a little.  Get ye right up against th' wall.  Fuck ye hard."

She didn't understand.  She really, really didn't understand.  Part of her was disgusted that she was having this conversation at all -- warriors and hunters of her people did not simply go about letting themselves get smacked around.  Someone hurt you, you hurt them back, worse.  That was the expectation.  That was honor.  And, despite her mistakes, despite her ... issues, she'd always done the right thing, and she was well regarded.  Even still.  Why should she let some backwards foreigner sully her?

But she ached to be touched.  She'd slept alone on the road the last six suns, and she just... she just...

"If I do this," she whispered, "then you must let me sleep here, tonight.  Next to you."

His turn to give her a baffled look.  "Wot?"

"I like it," she said.

A long pause.  She started to get undressed, again, and he finally said: "a'right.  Sure."

She didn't stop until she stood naked before him, watching him as he watched her.  There was a renewed flicker of interest, there.  A small spark of lust.  He still wasn't as hard as he'd been before, though.  She wondered if he'd expect her to rectify that.  She wandered closer to him, feeling the strength in her own body.  Feeling her own readiness to defend herself, if she needed to.  Well, he'd have to rectify some of her own lost arousal, if that were the case.  Fair was fair.

"So... how do we --"

He grabbed her by her hair, twisted her around before she had a chance to do more than gasp and flail, and pushed her down so the side of her face hit the floor.  It stunned her.  And yet, before she had a chance to fight, he brought his face down next to her ear, his voice startlingly gentle.  "If ye want this t'stop, at any time, ye jes say stop."

It made her pause.  

His fingers were between her legs in the next instant, his mouth on her shoulder.  He didn't bite her, as  he said he wouldn't, but he did something else that stung.  She felt as if he'd cheated her somehow, but she was too distracted by those fingers to complain about it.  She could feel the heat between her thighs building again, giving her cause to arch her back and push back against him: needy.

He pushed her head down harder on the floor, and she felt him withdraw a little.  He slapped her ass.  That wasn't new to her, but the strength of the blow made her flinch.  He paused, as if to dare her to tell him to stop.  Stubborn, she didn't, gritting her teeth as he resumed fingering her.  It felt good, she had to admit, surprisingly so.  She'd expected him to be terrible at it.

He slapped her again.  She cried out.  He fingered her.  Back and forth, never letting her get too accustomed to either, he set her to reeling.  The worst part was, she still couldn't decide whether or not she liked it, but her body was throbbing all the same, singing with her own arousal.  She lay there, limp, ass up high.  He left her there, until she started to actively move, seeking more of his attentions.  He chuckled, and she flushed with realization of what was happenning.  Then, before she could get some cutting remark out, his hand fisted in her hair again, and drew her head sharply back.  It stung, the pain quick and harsh and...not entirely disagreeable.

Shocked, she didn't even offer protest as he forced her body upright, with her still on her knees, twisting her at an awkward angle.  She felt him then, the bulbous head of him, pressed up to her vulva.  He slid against her, and it was only then that she realized just how wet she was.  It had to be a fluke, somehow, really, but that smooth slide of him against her, bumping up against her clit --

she moaned.

He made a sound of his own then, entirely masculine and self-satisfied.  She growled back at him, and he casually slapped her on the side of her hip.  It stung worse than her reddened ass did, and she flinched, yelping.

He pushed in.

Everything changed.

Prolonged teasing had seen Zuri cum from entrance before, but this time was different.  The lingering stinging and warmth from the slapping played havoc with the pleasure she felt, enhancing it rather than subtracting from it.  It was a confusing sensation, as if there were an underlying foundation to her orgasm that held it back and made it more intense, at the same time.

She didn't know if she liked it.

She wanted more.

He obliged.  She could hear him chuckling, as if he knew what was going on in her head.  His big hands rested on her hips, pulling her back into him with each resounding thrust.  She could smell her own excitement, hear it as he pounded her, and even when he took firmer hold of her hair, she still found herself tumbling into more little orgasms.  She resented each one.

"Sure ye don't want t'say stop?"

"Shut u--"

He yanked back on her hair viciously, and the moan she let out shamed her to her core.  She bit down on her lip, determined to prove him wrong, about everything.  Even though she wasn't quite sure what that meant anymore, she knew that she needed to prove to him that this wasn't the way sex worked.

He picked her up, turning her around with an ease that made her dizzy.  His fingers squeezed on her hips so hard she couldn't help but cry out with the pain, even as he set her to the wall with such force her teeth nearly rattled.  She stared up at him as he settled her thighs on his hips, grinning at her.

"If ye want it t' stop... do ye?"

He was mocking her now.  She glared at him, bared her teeth in clear warning, and he thrust into her without warning.  She screamed, the feel of it mixing pain with pleasure in a whole new way than what he'd done before.  A feeling not unlike the urge to cry bubbled up into her throat, her eyes going hot in a way that didn't quite feel right.

She could say stop.

She could.

But then she wouldn't know how this ended.  And she needed to know, the same way she needed him to make her keep cumming, the same way she needed his cock in her, each push scraping her back against the wall.  She wanted it even as she despised it, loathed it even as she loved it.  And she didn't know.  She couldn't know, could only drown in it as it went on and on, clawing him up and down and hearing him moan for it, unable to help herself even as he helped himself to her.

And she didn't care.  If this was what it meant to lose her honor, then what was honor?  What was sex?  

She stopped thinking, falling into the endless tide of the pleasure until she was left limp and wobbly, until her body was near numb with it.

She felt him cum in her, and couldn't even manage one last one for herself.  She was utterly spent, not protesting or resisting as he carried her back to his bed, lay her down, and flopped beside her.  He didn't cuddle her, instead putting his back to hers.  It was companionable enough, as her dazed mind wandered over inconsequential things, until she fell asleep.

Sometimes, life didn't make sense.

The sound of Zuri's mother clicking her tongue was not good.  It meant, as it always meant, that Zuri had done something wrong.  This didn't bother Zuri, as she expected to do something wrong.  Even Zuri's mother still made mistakes, at her age: only the elders could be expected to hold standards of perfection.  Zuri was a long way from there, even in something so simple as the process of preparing the fish for smoking.

"Here, girl," her mother said, knife flashing as she moved it with a deft precision that Zuri could only marvel at.

Zuri wiped her cheek with the back of her hand, leaning over to watch her mother's movements.  In, out, scrape.

Zuri tried again.

"Look..  Your wrist is limp."

Zuri tried again.  

Her mother clicked her tongue.

That was how it went for the four baskets of fish that sat before them, aunties sitting in a circle with sisters and cousins and nieces, chattering about the weather and the patterns of animal behavior that predicted how winter would come.  A few ribbed Zuri for her mistakes, but no more than the other girls who yet learned.  One of the grandmothers sat nearby, checking all of their work, setting it to dry just so with the aid of two of her daughters; they were nearly grandmothers themselves.  Would be, come spring.

Zuri glanced sidelong at one of her older cousins, muscled stomach just beginning to show the baby that grew within.  She looked down at her own stomach: empty.  Flat.  She chewed at her lip, worrying that she'd not yet attracted one of the wandering Keeper men to lay with her.  Always, always, it was one of her sisters or cousins; it annoyed her that she was not yet given the chance to be mother while the others had many dances to boast of, much less little ones toddling along behind.

Her mother made a sound, and Zuri looked up, and then looked down.  She winced.  She'd bruised the meat.

"You won't catch a full belly that way, girl," Yhas, one of her aunties, called.  She'd the most wicked tongue on her.  Zuri darkened as kith and kin around her laughed for her mistake.  She ducked her head, salvaging what she could, and focused on her work.

____

The sun was rising by the time Zuri had finished the evening's chores.  She should turn in, but after her bumbling foolishness earlier, she'd a need to be by herself for a little bit before she tumbled into the furs with the rest of the women and children.  Right then, she didn't care for the thought of sleeping alongside nieces and nephews and sisters and cousins, and all the lingering jibes from the day's messups.

Instead, she wandered away from camp and the smell of food stores and leather and woodcraft, away towards one of the nearby pools formed by a slow creek and some post-winter detritus that had caught at just the right spot.  They went there for swimming and bathing.  It was awfully childish of her to go swimming when she should be sleeping, but she'd made too many childish mistakes that day for her to feel that bad about it.

She was sulking.  She couldn't help it.

A quick strip, and she was hip deep in startlingly cold water.  She sucked in breath as it hit her groin, sending icy aftershocks deep into her core.  The extreme change in temperature vitalized her mind, and set her nether regions to aching.  Well, that was something else she couldn't exactly handle in bed, and perhaps it made the extra effort to be alone worthwhile.  

Shivering, Zuri waded towards the deepest part of the pool, edging close enough to force herself on tiptoes before she stopped.  She didn't care to get her hair wet, but she wanted to feel the water's icy touch, let it cleanse her of all the bitter heat that had stained her during the long evening.  

"Zuri."

Her ears flicked backwards, temper flaring at the sound of her friend.  Kith, not kin, for all they were raised with the same aunties and grandmothers scolding them for every misdeed.  She kept her back turned, hoping the silence and body language was signal enough to tell the other to back off.  Dawn was coloring the water with the barest hint of pink and orange, destroying the cool shadows of night.  Zuri didn't want to be seen like that, not right then.

The sound of someone slipping into the water made it clear her wishes had not been heeded.  She sighed, but didn't move.

Strong, slender fingers gripped her wrist, pulling her back from the edge.  There was gentle chastisement in that grip, in that pull, and Zuri resented it, resisting as Suva pulled her back and around -- her greater height and weight making it easy for her, and Zuri was not going to disgrace herself more with an ungraceful struggle.  

Warm arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her into shallower water and a soft embrace.

"Shh," Suva said, as Zuri bared her teeth.  "I know your frustration."

Zuri looked down, brows furrowing.  Oh, the words stung.  Suva would know.  She'd been visited a full week.  

Jealousy stole through Zuri, of a stripe she couldn't quite name.  Didn't want to.

She pushed away from her friend, the movement harsh and sudden.  A sharp sense of abandonment sliced her, and she wanted very dearly to stomp out of the pool and fetch her things and go running through the morning.  Away.

"Dearest," Suva whispered, wet fingers combing through Zuri's hair, sliding down the sides of her face.  She tipped it up, resisting Zuri's slight resistance.  There was hurt in fair Suva's eyes, hurt that did not stop the taller woman from pulling Zuri's face up to her own.

Suva's lips were the softest things Zuri had ever known.  Not even Suva's breasts were so soft; they were high, and small, and firm.  Beautifully shaped, though the grandmothers (when tutting about the future of the combined tribe) had worried Suva would not make a competent nursing mother.  Zuri'd never cared, she loved them: took pride in her friend's looks.  She couldn't help but melt against Suva, not when they were so close.  She couldn't even resent Suva using that fact against her.

Suva was smiling as they broke their kiss, even despite Zuri's resigned glare.  Her hands drifted lower, dipping under the water.

Zuri glared harder.

"Shh," Suva said.

Those fingers slid down the small of her back, over her rear.  One hand gripped one cheek, pulling Zuri up tight against the other woman.  It started a soft sound from her, and she looked away, reddening, as Suva's slow  smile spread into a grin.

The other fingers had slid between Zuri's cheeks, trailing down over her cold-tightened asshole and over her perineum, until they settled within her labial folds.  They began to move, slowly there, teasing the cool flesh with light pinches and squeezes and tugs.  Zuri's breathing quickened.  Suva broke contact, hand sliding around to the front and dipping back down.  This time, her fingers divided onto the flesh surrounding her clitoral hood, pushing and pressing into, pulling back and up, down and sideways.  Slowly, firmly, with a knowledge born of many moons, Suva worked the flesh.  She worked Zuri, until her breaths became pants and small frustrated moans escaped her every other breath.  Suva toyed with her, until Zuri began to whine with need, at the unfairness of the deliberate teasing.

Suva withheld Zuri from orgasm.

Held it.

And then forced her into one with a sure flick and push of her fingers, before withdrawing from the other woman entirely.

Zuri’s body screamed with the need to be touched.

Not even dawn's light could detract Suva's beauty, as she stood there, tall and full of confidence.

"Now," she said, "you come to me."

Zuri didn’t think.  She moved.  Water sloshed around her, speckling her as she waded to her friend, her lover, and knelt before her.  The water was shallower; kneeling, it only came up to her shoulders.  It still felt cold, back over her skin.  She didn't care.  Not with Suva's thighs before her.  

As thighs went, Zuri had always privately held that Suva's were the best.  They were corded with muscle without appearing too large for her elegant frame.  Perfectly shaped, perfectly proportioned.  Her legs were long, her torso short by comparison -- but it worked for her.  It might not have worked for another, but for her... for her, it made of her a goddess.  And if there was any place on her that Suri might hope to touch and kiss, it would be her thighs.

And their apex.

She knelt between Suva's thighs, looking up as Suva looked down.  Zuri rested her hands on the lower end of Suva's hips, pressing kisses up those sensitive inner thighs.

Suva's labia were small, and plump.  Her inner labia spread out, like a flower, deliciously textured and lush, made more so by the water slowly dripping off them.  Ah, and there, her scent: musky, earthy, with just a hint of salty sweetness.  Her clitoris was large and round, like a moon peeking out of its hood, divine and serene and Zuri pressed her mouth to it without any more thought.

Suckling, she slipped her tongue over and around the fleshy hood, pushing into it.  She lavished it with attention, careful to not give too much direct stimulation to that sensitive pearl.  She felt Suva's hands on her head, one gently gripping and squeezing her ear, the other curling through her hair.  Caresses for caresses.  Love for love, given freely in equal measure.  

Zuri's fingers dug in as Suva moaned, and felt an answering jerk from the other woman, felt her trembling.  Felt her appreciation, for those efforts spent.  Zuri released a hip to slip a finger down, tugging on those plump labial folds and massaging them with her palm.  Ground into them, as she felt that slippery beginning of Suva's readiness to fuck.  And, after Zuri moved in to lick and suck on every bit of her lover's vulva, she gave in to the impulse.  

One finger, two.  She thrust in hard, knowing it was time, knowing Suva's trepidation and hesitation, and her want for the roughness even as the thought of it made her heart flutter.  Suva was slick, inside.  Zuri shifted where she knelt, giving herself a better angle to pump her fingers in and out of Suva's pussy.  It smelled heavenly, and it was an even toss whether Zuri would lick her fingers clean, or smear it over Suva's lips.  The expressions Suva wore when she did... Zuri bit her lip.  Bit it harder, as Suva grew wetter, and started to squelch lewdly with each renewed thrust into her pussy.  

Zuri hooked her fingers inside, pressing hard to the front, seeking out that delicious spot, chasing down the orgasm she knew she could bring.  The one she could bring best.  Only her.  

"Promise me," she said, pulling her wet mouth away, staring up, hard, "promise me nothing will change, Suva, promise."

Suva was gasping, bent, legs splayed as she tried to remain upright.  More and more of her weight was levied against Zuri's head as she fought to retain balance.  She looked down, face contorted with her pleasure.  With love.

"I promise," she gasped out, staring down.

It was enough.

Zuri hooked, and twisted, and pulled, and rammed her fingers in.

Suva came with a choked off scream, both of her hands flying up to cover her mouth, to strangle down the sound before they might wake anyone. Zuri pulled her fingers free and, unable to resist herself, sucked them clean as she let Suva slowly come down from her orgasm, standing up to lead her back to the edge of the pool.  Dawn's light caught the droplets on Suva's form, and for one of the only moments in her life, Zuri appreciated what the illumination did.  Suva sparkled like a gemstone, all tawny skinned and flushed with her excitement.  It was a good look for her.  Everything was.

Suva reached for her, as Zuri laid her down, and Zuri kissed her way up Suva's body, laying over the other as she shared the flavor on her tongue.  They kissed, sloppy, but neither much cared.  They both sought each other with need, and received it in return.

"I wish I could give you a baby," Zuri muttered, burying her face into Suva's neck.

"Shh," Suva said, tugging Zuri up.  And up.  ...and up.

Suva pulled Zuri into place so Zuri was straddling her face.  Yeah, it was official: best dawn ever.  Zuri ground down as Suva's tongue found every ilm of flesh, every bit of pleasure that could be wrung out.  Suva's tongue cleaned it all up, working against Zuri just as her fingers had, drawing out her pleasure.  Her hands gripped Zuri's hips, dragging her down, encouraging Zuri to grind against her, to chase her own pleasure as much as Suva gave it to her.

Over, and over, and over.

It was Zuri's turn to gasp, and moan, and tremble as she finally sagged and slid sideways, collapsing into a breathless heap next to Suva.  This time, it was Suva who pulled Zuri in for a kiss, trading the taste back.  

They lay there, for a time, hand in hand, body pressed to body.

"Promise me," Zuri said again, some emotion making her voice tremble.