Runelords 18.1 - A Night at the Inn

Luna and Aldern lay across a bed of their inn room. There was no desk or any other furniture, being a simple establishment, so they sat on the bed like a couch, flipping through books. It was a rainy night on the way to Turtleback Ferry, and the two undead were stuck in the tiny room: they didn't want to alert anyone to their curious behaviour, and it wasn't as though there was anything to do out here at night anyways; they were no longer in the sleepless city of Medinipur. Aldern sat with his back against the headboard while Luna lay flat beside him, holding the book above her face, a small space separating them. The scarf she had permanently draped across her face in public had been pulled away and discarded over her bag the moment the door had been closed, as it always was now when alone in Aldern’s company. They read quietly for a while before Luna broke the silence, "Ugh. This book is dumb." 
The man turned his attention to her, "What is it about?" 
"It's a treatise on advanced alchemy." She made a scoffing noise, "Saying 'advanced' is generous though. We cover most of this stuff in school in Columbia. And this section on botanical derivatives is just plain out of date." She grumbled and rolled over innocuously to rest on her elbows, her side pressed up against Aldern's. 
"Why are you reading it then?" he asked. 
"I had higher hopes for it when I picked it up. I was hoping to learn something." She scoffed again, "Doesn't seem likely now though."
"This one is..." he struggled for a word. 
"Yes, I know that one is terrible too," she grinned with some embarrassment. "I don't read them before I get them; it looked better on the shelf." 
“Do you...often read books like this?” he asked with a slight sidelong grin.
“I told you to bring your own!” she said with mock offense, trying to shift topic. “I warned you there’d be nothing to do!”
He retorted simply, “I forgot!” 
“Then you can’t complain about what I brought,” she said smugly, still grinning. She twisted around again, a seemingly intentionless motion that left her head resting on his torso. Aldern looked down at the woman lying on him, pretending she was doing nothing, and he smiled, moving his arms to accommodate her. They read quietly for a while before Luna made an aggravated sigh, lightly tossing the book to the floor by her bag. “That’s it, I’m done. It’s like reading a high school text written by a patronizing layman.” She crossed her arms and lay her head back down on them, leaning on Aldern’s chest. With the slight hesitance of someone afraid that they might offend, he moved his arm to drape lightly around her shoulders; she pressed herself into him more tightly at the touch, savouring the contact. 
It was Aldern who broke the contented silence, reading aloud, “As Sir Tarinton pulled her down on top of him, she knew that this would be a night, and knight, to remember.”
“Auuuugh, don’t read it out loud!” Luna protested with a smile of potent embarrassment, curling up into a ball. “It’s a terrible book! Don’t yell it out, that makes it worse! I won’t let you borrow them if you do that.” He chuckled at her outburst, placing the book down gently and turning his full attentions towards her. She was turned away, her face covered with her arms and her knees brought up tight, but she still lay on his side. Reaching out, he scooped her up tightly into a hug and she melted into him happily. Turning about to look up at him, her chin resting on his chest, she smiled. Returning the expression, he leaned forwards gently and pressed his lips to hers. Pulling herself up by his shoulders, the two kissed passionately.
Stroking his hand lightly through her tangle of hair, Aldern pulled back just enough to speak quietly, “I don’t want to do anything wrong by you…”
She giggled lightly, her lips nearly brushing against his as she spoke, “What? Are you planning on sucker punching me and running away? Because I’d think anything short of that is fine.”
A grin twitched the corners of his mouth, “So, you’re fine with…”
“Remember what I said before?” she interrupted him. “This is backwards. I’d normally have gone a lot farther with someone before agreeing to court them,” she said with a sarcastic inflection. She pressed her lips to his once more before adding with a slight humour, “And I’ve been in foursomes with some...imaginative alchemists. I doubt you’d do anything I’d think is weird.” His smile had a touch of incredulity to it, and he shook his head slightly before kissing her again, his hand moving down the flow of her hair to the small of her back, pulling her in. As his hand began to trace up and along her torso, the first foray into the exploration of her body, she flinched and pulled back slightly, causing him to freeze with hesitancy. She looked down, biting her lip for a moment before muttering quickly, “You’ve never seen me without make-up before; I’m always wearing it. And I’m, like, super thin. Sick-looking thin. I’m...I’m not pretty, under disguises and clothes and stuff.”
Aldern sighed with a tinge of sorrow before bringing his hand to Luna’s cheek, tilting her face towards him and touching the tip of his nose to hers. “You’re beautiful,” he said simply, drawing his nose up the bridge of her face to plant a kiss on her brow. “You’re beautiful and other women can’t compare.” She chuckled quietly, a note in her voice saying that she didn’t quite believe him. She didn’t believe him, but she didn’t care; she ran her hands through the hair at the nape of his neck, tugging out the ribbon that tied it back as she pulled him forward, kissing him again.
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“I...I don’t…” Aldern stammered, flustered and embarrassed. “It’s never…”
Luna grinned cheekily, sticking out her tongue. “Happens to lots of guys!” she quipped, doing nothing to banish his shame. She gave him a peck on the nose, “But in your case, it’s because you have no circulation anywhere.” She still grinned, “Stop panicking, really.” Extricating herself from him and the blankets momentarily, she reached deep into a pocket of her bag. She pulled out a small ring of metal, engraved with runes. “Bought this before leaving the city,” she said, still smiling slyly. “I...figured this would come up.” Sliding back under the sheets and his body, she added, “Not many people have no blood flow, but luckily, lots of men have this problem. Made these pretty common.” She deftly slipped the ring into place with one hand, wrapping the other arm around his neck and pulling herself closer to him. She breathed into his ear and said facetiously, “Thank the gods for magic, right?”
He could feel the enchantment making him hard, even without the blood he lacked, and he pressed himself onto her, the passion of his kisses fueled with all of his relief and joy and attraction for her.
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They didn’t need to breathe, but they did, inhaling heavily out of instinct and desire. Exhaustion and discomfort were impossible; they had no living muscles to pull or tire, no breath to run out of, nothing but their acute senses and the human lust that remained in their minds, their need to touch and feel and connect carnally with one another. 
“Can-mmm-can I say something?” Luna said between sighed moans of pleasure. Aldern kept his lips against her neck, but hummed his assent. “Don’t-don’t take it the wrong way.” She took his head and pulled his ear towards her mouth. With a breathy whisper, she chided, “You are criminally wasting your tongue.” He blinked once, before a grin both bemused and sly quirked the corner of his mouth. He ran his dry tongue along the edge of her ear, tracing a line down and across the nape of her neck, reaching around far beyond anything a human could manage, nearly to her opposite ear. She shivered and arched her back, half giggling and half groaning, “Ahhhh-ha-haaaahh~ yessss…” 
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“You look tired,” Aldern commented between shallow breaths.
Luna opened her eyes, still reeling from the euphoric rush. She smiled and brought her face up to his, laughing quietly. “Tired? Hehehe. We don’t get tired.” She kissed him, running her tongue along the sharp points of his carnivorous teeth, a sensation that was so familiar to her yet so strange and oddly gratifying to feel in someone else’s mouth. Dragging her hand through the hairs on his chest, pulling her mouth back just enough to form words, she said, “We don’t get tired. We could literally do this forever.”
He smiled, kissing her briefly before replying, “One night at a time.” Wrapping his arms around her, he pushed her back down onto the bed.
Category:Rise of the Runelords