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[corporeity]

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[nightsung]

[ Shadowheart remembers few specifics of her training, or her missions before the artefact. Any memories that rise to the surface of her mind, jogged by scent or circumstance, dissolve just as quickly in a flood of dark water. Fragments of fragments, at best.

But she knows she was taught to be clinical about these things, always. To feel neither remorse nor any degree of sadistic pleasure when tailing or torturing a mark, lest she face punishment of her own.

If Gale were Sharran as well, he might be tasked with said punishment. A way to keep recruits from becoming too fond of one another. He's so sweet that Shadowheart can hardly picture it--though her mind supplies an image of him in battle, the force he's capable of using against an enemy. Were he to bend her over a bench and smack broad palms across the tender flesh between her ass and thighs, leave her skin heated and red, he'd no doubt soothe her after. Cooling magic with those same hands, clever in their spellwork. He's a man built more for soothing, she's sure. For pleasing, as he's already hinted at tonight, practiced in the art thanks to his former celestial mistress.

An unnecessary fantasy, all from watching Gale peel off his fine shirt, baring a flex of muscles across his broad shoulders. Not a fighter's physique, but handsome, and easy to appreciate--which more than a few women in the room do, with titters of amusement. The audience sends another flare of possessiveness through her, even though the audience is precisely the point.

If Gale is looking for assurance in Shadowheart's eyes, in his last look back he gets, instead, a hot flush of shame across her pale cheeks. Caught in the realization that their connection through the tadpole was open for said assurance, and instead her idle thoughts likely slipped through, more damning than the curated ones she's allowed him so far.

She closes it abruptly, with a sharp exhale through her nose. Cinches the second cuff more hastily, heels clacking on the stone floor as she positions herself a short distance away. Best not to think--just do.

The leather sings, not quite the crack of a whip but a softer smack as the heavy tails hit one shoulder blade, a flick of her wrist to hit the other. It will hurt most in the beginning, but Gale can endure it. ]

[corporeity]

[ It takes him too long to realise that Shadowheart has cracked a window in her mind, light filtering through the gap. The slivers that slip through make little sense. Broad, handsome, mine. A flash of a pale ass that can’t possibly be his own, but a hand that could be. Olive skin, warm undertone, dark hair on the knuckles, sinewy-strong from casting. His own thoughts come syrup slow, prevented from reaching a definitive conclusion by the cuffs, which tease his right wrist but dig into his left, drawn too tight in Shadowheart’s haste. No fine finger slipped underneath to test the give as she had elsewhere.

You’ve disappointed her. It stings no less for being inevitable. His only relief comes in the form of a punishment he surely deserves. The stinging not-quite-pain that rushes to his head, dizzying. ]

One.

[ Not at all like the Weave, which never burns, only heats. Never marks, only covers, fills, surrounds. He jolts at the first and second lash. Feels the orb warm his chest by the third, its faint glow drawing the attention of their mark, of all people. What a charming little modification. He hardly has time to think something snide, with his most relentless mistress at work. Slaves should be seen and not heard, he knows, gasps quiet but there. A low moan loosed on the — fifth, he guesses aloud correctly — for Shadowheart alone. Or so he hopes, with most onlookers still at a distance. Hips hitching for want of friction, he counts six twice which, of all things (nudity and degradation and a bloody audience) is what shames him. Earns him an eleventh strike, certainly.

He thinks of the times Mystra wanted him to err, to lose his ability to think straight, any brilliance waylaid by human need, mistakes multiplied by the overwhelm of Her attention. Proof that he needed her in the fabric of his desperation. She would never be reduced to this, twitching and panting. Unable to remain wholly still but keeping his glassy eyes forward, his position proper. ]

[nightsung]

[ She should check in with him, as the orb flares. Stabilized, she knows, but for a moment Shadowheart imagines a flash of oblivion. It's how her desire feels to her, the tips of her ears pinking at Gale's moan, a threat to their cover and their mission both.

She manages to tut at the miscount, the flick of her wrist tighter and meaner on seven. Shadowheart prepares a verbal admonishment for the eighth, when Vlon Agrach Dyrr smoothly interrupts, a cool hand on her shoulder.

Surely your slave deserves something meaner than leather, for his failure. The room's eyes are on them, and she's forced to agree.

Gale's shoulders are reddened already, heat brought to the surface by each thud of the falls. Shadowheart hasn't yet drawn blood, but she imagines that's what Vlon is angling for when she steps in.

So Shadowheart returns to the rack of implements, thinks of Abdirak's dagger and the stains on his wall and floor, then a flash of deeper memory: someone strapped to a chair, screaming, a table covered in knives and scalpels and fire-hot tongs, Shadowheart's hands coated in a spray of red.

It shouldn't unnerve her the way it does. She's within Gale's range of vision when her hand falters a moment, before she covers the flinch by grasping the handle of another flogger with thinner tails, each tipped with pointed steel.

Apologies will have to come later, though she allows a flicker of eye contact before she returns to her place behind him, where Vlon praises her choice. ]

To fifteen then, slave. Twenty if there are further miscounts.

[ Coolly, to a pleased murmur from the crowd. This will sting more sharply, she knows; this will leave lashes on Gale's back, though Shadowheart will do what she can to ensure they won't scar. Better to finish this quickly, for both of their sakes--and so she begins the rest of his whipping in earnest, leather cracking against his already-tender skin. ]

[corporeity]

[ Distantly, as if heard through a stretch of deep water, he notes Vlon Agrach Dyrr’s judgment. He agrees, even as his back muscles tense, arms going similarly taut as his fingers curl inward. An attempt to seek purchase and comfort in the constancy of the cuffs. He could cast any number of spells, incinerating his bonds or arming his body, but any protective measures would reflect poorly on Shadowheart, if discovered. And the pain is the point, for the drow. Having read every book he could find on the topic, he knows this. They’ll want for bruises, welts, blood. Proof of penance in the flesh that was never his to guard in the first place.

And you deserve it. For failing Shadowheart. For dishonouring Mystra. In this moment, the two are more closely aligned than he would prefer. It helps, though, to regress to his prior role as a consort. To imagine the safety of the Weave, blanketing his limbs. (And among the old fantasies, the familiar aches, to think of Shadowheart’s hand on his jaw, the lush velvet of her voice when she named him good). He doesn’t dare do more than meet her gaze, wishing to count her daggered lashes but forcing himself to bow his head toward Vlon, eyes downcast in reverent submission.

Her answering laugh sounds almost approving. Almost.

He manages a doleful, yes, mistresses. His teeth unwisely snag the inside of his cheek before the first strike with the finer, sharper, more undeniable implement. Counts with a warbling breath, then, despite the copper in his mouth and silver smarting at his back. He can take it. He knows he’s had — not worse, but more — alighting his veins, running rivulets down his spine. As such, he reminds himself the answer isn’t to fight the sting or reject the sensation, but to sink into it like a boiling bath.

Sweat gathers at the small of his back, the nape of his neck. By the time they reach eleven, his drawn-out gasp over the metal nicking his shoulder is a reedy, needful thing. Lost in the sensation of it, the syncopated rhythm that keeps him quite literally on his toes. He still notes the pain of the fourteenth, the widening of a wound. Perhaps that’s why he fails to celebrate the finality of the following strike. Half-slack against the wood and painfully hard in his tight trousers, he only wonders if he’s earned the reprieve, not whether or not it will come. ]

[nightsung]

[ The whip draws blood, by the end, mingling with Gale's sweat as his muscles shake. Shadowheart hasn't used anywhere near her full strength--and has seen him take flaming goblin arrows to the chest, and worse--but it's still more than she'd expected to subject him to, tonight.

And yet you should be willing to do anything for the Dark Lady, and this is nothing. Her betters would sneer at her for feeling the pang of remorse over a brief flogging. Child's play.

Vlon engages her in conversation, as if her slave weren't still shackled to the cross (he is, after all, meant to be a prop rather than a party with agency), and Shadowheart at least has the presence of mind to ask her about the wine. Pleased, she promises to show her their family's cellar after she's made a few more rounds for the sake of their mercantile sponsors.

Which means Shadowheart has some time, once Vlon drifts away. She presses her palm to the small of Gale's back to let him know she's there, perhaps foolishly gentle. A slip of care that she'll say is because she doesn't want him to faint on her, should anyone question it.

Attention in the room has turned from them, at least, now that the show is over. Shadowheart doesn't speak as she uncuffs Gale from the cross, refastening his lead long enough to murmur a quiet pass without trace to keep eyes off of them, for a moment. She guides him toward a set of metal doors she knows lead out to a balcony. While the Underdark may not have fresh air, it will at least afford them some privacy.

The balcony is blessedly unoccupied, when the doors creak open. There's an adjacent waterfall in the rockface the house is carved into, which masks sound well enough; after a sweep, to ensure there isn't anyone above or below them, Shadowheart finally turns her attention properly to Gale, unclasping his cuffs and giving him the full range of movement in his hands and wrists. Likely stiff, by now. There's a stripe of red across the wrist bone, where she'd been careless and fastened too tightly, and Shadowheart gentles her thumb over it. ]

Gale. Look at me. [ Her voice low, earnest as she holds both of his hands in hers, gaze finding his face. ] You were so good, you did so well.

[ His hands are cold. She should have a look at his shoulders, but Shadowheart is focused elsewhere: standing close enough to smell his sweat, gently rubbing warmth back into his fingers. For a moment, a flash of having done this for a friend at the Cloister, in secret--after being told to hurt them, too. A fatal weakness in caring at all, but Shadowheart won't move forward until she's certain Gale is all right. ]

[corporeity]

[ The time between the end of his punishment and the quiet of the balcony blurs, his pleasure-pain addled mind tracking only his stumbling and the bob of Shadowheart’s updo ahead of him. He feels — raw, exposed and aching for something he can’t pinpoint (beyond the obvious, recalling how the vee of Shadowheart’s legs opened to him as he kneeled).

Upon release, he doesn’t immediately stretch his arms. His shoulders ache from his position on the cross, and his wrists — he winces as Shadowheart gentles the worse of the two, though he also ducks his head, called closer by the cadence of her voice. Not a tone she often uses with him, mind, unless he’s been injured terribly. And this is nothing compared to arrows in the gut or demonic claws in his flesh. At worst, he’s bleeding. Bruised like overripe fruit.

His attention lifts, a pup starved for affection. Good good good good — it eases the set of his shoulders. ]

Did I? [ voice tight, eyes slowly clearing, then searching. Her hands seem so small, trying to encircle his wrists. Movement and awareness come back to him in stages, as though he were a rusted automaton shaking off the dust. ]

I suppose I didn’t incinerate anyone. Or implode.

[ Trying and failing for humour, visibly torn. His focus catches on the crease in her brow, which has only ever signified concentration before but now seems pained. Softer, then: ]

Apologies for my misstep. It was never my intention to place undue pressure upon you.

[nightsung]

[ Gale comes back to her from somewhere far away, and the tightness in Shadowheart's own posture eases. She feels responsible for him, tonight, in a way she might not on an endeavor with their usual suspects. Lady Shar and the Mother Superior may not care about Gale's welfare, but it will reflect poorly on her if he's incapacitated before they get what they need.

Foolish of her to be soft with him, on the other hand. But she finds herself needing it as much as he does, for a moment: a breath to remove their masks, re-attune to one another.

Shadowheart may not default to the warmest bedside manner, but she still knows how to soothe. Not channeling her magic (in case they have true need of it later), but timing the thump of Gale's pulse beneath her thumb before sweeping her hands up his arms, always keeping contact, anchoring him. ]

Hardly the worst pressure I've endured, in our time together. [ A touch sly, now that they're back on even ground. Her thumbs massage the taut skin across Gale's collarbone, working their way up to the leather at his throat. She slips her fingers beneath, to once again test the give, watching the bob of his larynx before moving to his jaw. ] Nor your worst mistake, I'd wager.

Though I hope that wasn't your first flogging. [ Pressing slow circles to the spot just behind Gale's ears, fingers massaging the base of his skull, the sweat-damp hairs at his nape. She's hardly a breath from him, close enough to kiss; close enough to melt into him, more than aware of the tent in his trousers (sizable, which makes her own pulse twitch). Shadowheart neither melts nor kisses him, though her breath deepens as she attunes to Gale, swaying a little on her feet. ]

[corporeity]

[ Whyever is she touching him, when he troubled her so? He wants to asks. Prepares to, even. His breath catches, lashes stuttering and thoughts scattering as she touches his throat. He thinks about her cinching the collar tighter. About her hand squeezing and releasing at her leisure, until she chokes out his needless, anxious thoughts. The image of her all that matters, swaying like a metronome. If anything slips through the tadpole’s tether, he’s in no place to notice it, let alone stop it.

She missteps only once. Not your worst mistake serves as a damning reminder. Crumples his expression, all too vulnerable to Shadowheart in this moment, when such a comment would normally make him look away or retreat inward. His worst mistake is obvious, after all, etched into his skin and the contours of his mind, pain receptors alight even when none hold the whip in hand. If she weren’t so attentive, so vital, so steady, he might snap shut like the ancient and wretched tome the damned him.

As it stands, his hands hover on either side of her waist. Not touching until she speaks again. Not yet holding, even then. Perching. ]

[ softer, ] It’s not so — physical, in the Weave.

[ With the awareness of his still damp hair, the stinging aftermath of the wound on his shoulder. He shakes his head, a slight thing so as not to dislodge her touch. Gale wishes to say more, but he finds himself unable to locate the words in the fog. It’s like an unmaking. Like a flaying of the soul, not the body. The pain is there, when it’s housed in the mind, but it’s secondary to the overwhelm. ]

So I suppose it was. My first.

[ A beat, in which his fingers finally curl into her sides, one hand splaying lower, over the swell of her hip. Ruching the fabric, thinking of slipping underneath. Wanting to, more than anything. They’re close enough that he could kiss her, though he surely hasn’t earned the right. ]

Shadowheart. [ Her name rumbles low as his thoughts coalesce into action and stretch toward her. The flash of her open legs recurs. He leads for the first time tonight, nudging her toward the balcony railing. ]

Could you — would you allow me to do better?

[ Voice thick, not uncertain in the least as he falls to his knees. Seeking her honest answer, though his hands trail down her thighs, index finger hooking on the slit of her dress. ]

[nightsung]

[ The mistake is a comment off-hand, meant only to encompass fumbles during their time together. Perhaps a reminder of why she's not their leader in efforts of persuasion, as Shadowheart realizes too late what she's evoked, for Gale. His face crumples, and it pains her--tangled strangely with his slips of desire, her hand on his throat, both of them breathless.

And then she realizes she's about to kiss him, to smooth that wrinkle of grief from his brow when he responds to a query she'd promptly forgotten. Her knuckles at his jaw, pressing over the pretty ring of his collar as Shadowheart considers the admission between his words. That Mystra had punished him, when he was hers. Something she'd known implicitly, of course, but now has an image for in her mind's eye, Gale strung up with ropes of light.

He touches her, finally, and for a moment Shadowheart is slow to follow, surprised by the building ache in her, in this quiet space where they're not playing a part. Had foolishly thought, perhaps, that she could remain detached through the night the way she imagines she used to (but doubts, even now).

The railing is cold against the small of her back, and she curls both hands against it, an anchor. Her breath deepening before Gale has sunk to his knees, desire coiling tightly between her legs. He'll find her wet, already, as he had before. ]

Yes. [ The calculations she runs through for their mission are clumsy. The balcony door is not locked, Vlon Agrach Dyrr will eventually come looking for them. But Shadowheart wouldn't be the first to put her slave on his knees for her pleasure, tonight.

She wants to touch him, but keeps her fingers tight around the railing. Shifts her stance, spreading her legs for him, the fabric of her dress pulled taut across her thighs. ]

Show me.

[corporeity]

[ The singular downside of this path is that her affection ceases. He can hardly think to complain, however, when her regard intensifies. He sits back on his haunches, briefly caught up in admiring the picture of her, lit by the purple and blue bioluminescence of the Underdark, so like the hues of the outer planes. A goddess in her own right, though he doesn’t dare say it aloud. Blasphemy twice over, when they’ve sworn themselves to the heavens. His hand wanders, slipping under her thigh, the dark curtain of her gown parting so he retrace his steps from the lounge. A kiss to her calf, the crest of her knee. Teeth scrape up her thigh, his beard dragging over sensitive skin. The hand at her hip tightens, thumb pressing into the slight fabric to find the divot at her hip.

She’s wet. He can see it. Can catch the scent, edging out her perfume. Can feel it on the seam of her panties, two fingers dragging over the damp, palm angling to cup her her sex through the fabric. His mouth parts, but he doesn’t lean forward yet. Drinking the whole of her in, first. Waiting, perhaps, for her to change her mind.

And sighing with relief, when she doesn’t — then with satisfaction, when he tugs the black satin aside and sinks into her, tongue lapping at her folds. Without haste, intent to savour, even with their plans for the night. ]

I wonder, [ regaining some semblance of self, in this familiar ritual. ] if it will surprise you to learn I’ve a talented tongue.

[ Warmth there, that hadn’t been allowed in the presence of others. That he still doesn’t risk voicing aloud, lest they find themselves watched or interrupted. She tastes divine. He knew she would, unable to keep himself from thinking it or humming his approval. ]

[nightsung]

[ It's impossible not to be affected by him, the way he looks at her. Pure devotion, pure longing. Shadowheart understands, suddenly, why his goddess wanted him all to herself--feels a thrill at the fact that he now wants her, even if only for the night.

She can't allow herself to imagine otherwise (desire that stretches beyond the trappings of this mission, even if she's seen it in stray glances, his hand touching hers in thanks after a healing) because it will crack her facade as mistress. Besides, any imagining is soon unspooled by the grounding reality of Gale's teeth pleasingly sharp at her inner thigh, clever fingers rubbing her through her panties. Her leg trembles and then stills, as she grinds her heel into the stone beneath it.

There's a gala they mean to rob on the other side of that door, full of drow that could kill them, and Gale's tongue is inside her.

Shadowheart doesn't remember-- Of course this isn't the first time, but in some ways, it might as well be. She hasn't had anyone since the nautiloid, since her memory was wiped clean for the artefact mission. Only her own idle hands in her tent, sometimes imagining Gale's in their spellwork, that fantasy slipping through where their connection remains open, wide, dangerous with the truth of his desire for her and hers for him.

Her knuckles are white against the iron latticework of the railing, and Shadowheart anchors a hand at the back of Gale's head, not yet exerting pressure. ]

Boasting when you've only just started? [ Aloud, a husky thread in her voice giving her away even as she tries to tease. Shadowheart's hips begin to rock with the cadence of his tongue, slick for him, her cheek tipping against her shoulder as she watches Gale get to work. ] How very like you.

[corporeity]

[ Couldn’t say whether it’s his fantasy or hers, a glimmer of dexterous fingers slipping inside her. Regardless, he doesn’t oblige. Having promised a different kind of performance, he stretches his thumb toward her clit to round and press in tandem with the flick of his tongue. Trying out different rhythms until they find the pace together, with her rocking hips. Leaning up to lick deeper into her. The opportunity to serve settles him, but the chance to please galvanises, chain lightning ricocheting from vertebrae to vertebrae. Collared and kept, used and useful. It’s a revelation, after a year of stumbling through the dark.

When she finally touches him, his own grip tightens in turn. The party and the pain blink out. Her charcoal lashes seem endless. ]

Is it boasting, [ A laugh in his red mouth, breathless from his ardour. The cut of his jaw is tinted lavender from below. ] if the results are observable and repeatable?

[ Ever the academic, a penchant that calls back to the last time he engaged in intimacy of this kind. Schoolboy fumbling. Of course, even then he knew to apply himself, to please anyone who doubted him. And if he hoped that his godly paramour might be jealous of his attempts at rakishness, well, it hadn’t mattered at all. Not to his knowledge, anyway, though he hasn’t strayed from her since.

Gale doesn’t think of Mystra now, not while nosing into the warm, snarling heart of his mistress for the night. His fingers spread her dark curls, her tenderest flesh, and he devotes himself to her fully. No more teasing or bragging to be had. Every thought narrows to her, beautiful perfect worthy. How fortunate that he’s an old hand at denial, else he’d surely spend himself and beget a worse punishment for them both. ]

[nightsung]

[ Shadowheart is unused to praise. This she knows even without the specificity of memory, because Shar is not a goddess who praises her acolytes. Beautiful racing through Gale's thoughts doesn't bring a pink flush to the tips of her ears, but worthy does. Isn't that all she's ever wanted to be?

Her breath comes less evenly, making soft sounds through parted lips with each roll of her hips against his eager mouth. Desire strung tight down the curve of her spine, the arch of her back, her thighs trembling a little with the scratch of his beard against her cunt, in contrast to the wet heat of his tongue.

Her fingers twist in Gale's hair, pulling sharp at his crown. Shadowheart will manage to keep herself upright, but she imagines a more comfortable venue: straddling his face in their bed, where she doesn't intend to let him rest. A strange gift, to have privacy and comfort awaiting them at the end of the night rather than a campfire and bedrolls. She'll ride his cock, too, with the leash for leverage, her cunt clenching against his tongue at the thought. ]

[corporeity]

[ He half-feels, half-experiences the reverb of her shiver on the heels on his compliment. This, he understands even through the haze of pleasure and denial, knowing he himself yearns for acknowledgment of the same kind.

A dog with a bone, he doubles down. Worthy of service, thought as his jaw begins to ache. The memory of the first lashes on his still-burning skin makes him whine. An act of service for her, not the mission. Of trust, warbled as his hips hitch into the air, nothing but the drag of fabric to ease his aching cock, when there’s no friction to be had that isn’t bestowed by Shadowheart herself. Of adulation, his mind working at praise and his tongue devoted to pleasure. Or the reverse, frankly, with any number of spells at their disposal. Thoughts and fantasies inchoate: The spectral fingers of a mage hand encompassing crossed wrists (hers, slender and pale, then his, sun-kissed and cuff-marked), or tightening around the base of his cock to keep him hard and waiting for her. Tricks used for one more expectant than indulgent, in another life.

She rewards him not with the curl of her lips around his name, but with her hand on the lead, her fingers in his hair. He doesn’t have to imagine the cord looped around her strong hand or the flex of her forearm, having seen it when she wound him close earlier.

Please. Hold the lead. Use him. Keep him. Please please please. Come on his tongue, now fucking her in earnest. Ride his cock until he’s spent. No, until she’s satisfied. He groans, wanton even among the slick sounds of their coupling.

Whether he comes first or she does matters little, with their minds linked and sensations doubled. He’s gone somewhere deeper, safer than he did while shackled, by the time his tongue slows and fingers gentle, idly gathering her arousal as he sits back. The picture of dazed satisfaction before her, hair mussed and eyes lidded. You needn’t invoke hynotic pattern or charm to slacken the workings of the mind, it seems, even one as ceaseless and twisty as his own. ]

[nightsung]

[ Perhaps it's because they've been skirting the edge of this all night--from the moment Shadowheart clasped his cuffs and collar at their flat, roles assumed--that she crests into overwhelm faster than expected. Or perhaps it's just Gale, tongue as clever as he'd promised, lapping at her folds and ever-offering more: of himself, his service, words and fantasy thickening the heat between them. The mage hand filling her, filling him, and she imagines it in addition to his tongue and his fingers, close to too-much. ]

Gale--

[ Aloud and louder than she should be, even with the cloak of pass without trace still blanketing their aura. The iron railing digs sharp between her fingers as Shadowheart comes with her hips grinding helplessly against Gale's mouth, gasping into the aftershocks, her vision blotted out by stars.

It takes her a moment to see him again, her inner thighs tender and slick from his mouth and her own juices. Panting, she manages, ]

Up. [ Using Gale to steady the wobble of her legs, as much as anything, shifting her grip on his hair to the chain at his throat to tug him back to his feet. Her cheeks and chest are flushed pink, bangs clinging sweat-damp to her temple when she presses herself close, hooking a leg around Gale's hip to dig her heel into his calf, breathless. ] Kiss me.

[corporeity]

[ He’s performed better here than he did on the cross, he knows that, even if she hasn’t told him so. A part of him wonders if he ought to keep going. Tilting up on his aching knees, he’s not all there, lost in the sight and sound of her. Drowning in the depths of their shared satisfaction.

But Shadowheart grasps his collar and pulls him from the water. Can’t recall where to put his hands, so he ends up clasping the rail behind her. A wise move, when she hooks her leg around his as if he’s steady or strong. If anything, he’s softer, more vulnerable for having given her a kind of worship he thought behind him. His other hand lifts to cup the heart of her jaw. There is no world where he denies her anything, in this moment, least of all something he himself wants. The pert pink of her mouth seems just as lovely, as impossible, as the warm flush of her body, the bob of her chest while she fights to even her breathing. He takes it in quick and greedy, unwilling to keep her waiting. ]

—Yes, mistress. [ Both a tease and not, caught in the vortex of this role and his existing inclinations. How many times do you intend to love a woman who can’t love you back?

He kisses her as if starved, despite the sticky-sweet taste of her still on his tongue, wetting the rough of his beard. Any chaste or shy instincts have gone the way of his dignity tonight. His bare skin presses against her silken dress, her soft curves. ]

[nightsung]

[ Shadowheart doesn't hold back, doesn't tease or deny: she meets Gale in the kiss with a soft, helpless sound, both hands moving to loop around his neck, one tangling in the hair at his nape. She tastes herself and shudders, the accompanying clench of arousal almost painful in the immediate aftermath of her climax.

She wants him. Not just to satisfy her own need, nor to keep him tied to her and this mission. She wants to keep kissing him, their bodies pressed close, a sweetness she hasn't experienced since-- She doesn't know. Maybe never. It's new to her, either way, his heat and his clever tongue. ]

Good boy. [ Gasped against his mouth, more earnest than she means to be as she surges into another kiss, and another, unable to keep herself quiet. Shadowheart knows better than to get distracted like this, with so much at stake, but Gale is distracting. ]