by Robin Wirth
Lance interjected. “There’s no telling how many
hours have passed, but I suspect at least one day
has gone by since we entered the caves. And, it
will be safer to rest out here. We’ve no idea what
we’ll find inside.”
“Agreed,” said Felicity with a nod, and
the two found a comfortable spot to lie down on
the ground. Lancelot pulled a blanket out of his
pack, making Felicity chuckle.
“Why did you pack that along?” she
inquired with a smile.
“Just in case,” he answered with a
wicked smile. “Now come here, and I’ll show
you in case of what.”
Giggling, Felicity went willingly into his
arms. They didn’t manage to search his pack for
food for quite a while.
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THIRTY-ONE
“Felicity, my sweet, if we don’t stop
doing this, I’ll be sorely tempted to initiate you
into the ranks of womanhood right here on this
blanket,” Lance whispered against the hardened
flesh of her exposed nipple. “Hardly a suitable
place for that sort of thing, in my opinion.”
Felicity took in a shaky breath and
whispered, “I’d be half tempted to let you.”
“Hush, my dear, do not tempt me
further,” he said as he pulled her clothing back
into its proper place and slid his hands up into
her hair instead.
“I need to read a bit more, anyway,” she
answered circumspectly. “Maybe I can learn
something more about this place.”
“All right, sweetheart,” he agreed as he
let her go and sat up. “You can read a bit while
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I unshrink us something to eat. Lucky I thought
to put some food and water into this sack of
goodies as well.”
“Yes, it was,” Felicity agreed as she sat
up, and she kissed him between his shoulder
blades before he moved away. His chuckle
vibrated against her mouth, and then he turned
back to face her again.
“Here is your book, my dear,” he said,
handing it to her. Felicity sat reading it while he
pulled out some miniaturized sandwiches and
made them big again. He turned back around and
handed one to her, and she smiled gratefully.
“I know it’s not much, but it should fill
your belly at any rate,” he said. “I’m much more
concerned about the water supply, truth be told.
All we have is this one canteen, and I’ve been
drinking from it the entire time I was looking for
you. I’m afraid there’s not much left, and I
haven’t brought any cups, either. But since
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we’ve been swapping spit lately anyway, I
hardly think that matters.”
Felicity raised a quelling brow at him as
he took a swig of water, and Lance almost
sputtered the drink back out again on the laugh
that welled up in his throat.
“Here now, you don’t have to put extras
in there while you’re at it!” she chastised him
good-naturedly as she took the canteen away.
Lance nearly choked as he swallowed
the gulp of water that was still in his mouth, and
then he laughed even harder. With an impish
twinkle in her eyes, Felicity leaned forward and
gave him a swat for good measure.
“Felicity, I swear I’m going to invest in
a new pot of ink this very moment,” he informed
her with a look that made her want to return to
the blanket for the aforementioned deflowering.
“Better get some new quills, and a few
extra scrolls, too, if you intend to keep track of
me,” she answered him with a smirk.
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“Oh, really?” he asked as he sat down
beside her and wrapped an arm around her waist,
nibbling playfully at the sensitive spot he’d
discovered on the side of her neck.
Felicity gasped at the sensation and
swatted at his questing hands. “Hey, do I look
like lunch to you?”
“No, certainly not,” he told her. “You
look much more like the main course. And I’ve
definitely got that meal wrote in for a better time
and place than this one, you can be sure.”
“Do you really?” she inquired sweetly.
“I rather thought that dining upon one another
had to be something agreed upon by both
parties.”
“Mm, I’m fairly certain it will be,” he
told her as he kissed the side of her mouth. “Now
eat your lunch, my sweet. We’ve got a lot more
adventuring to do as yet, and we’ve got to keep
our heads in the game.”
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“Aye, aye, Captain,” she agreed with a
salute. Lance shook his head, chuckling again as
he moved to a less tempting distance from the
delectable girl, opting to nibble on his food
instead.
“Come on, Felicity, let’s get some rest,”
he said when they’d both finished their food, and
he snatched the book out of her hands and used
it for a pillow.
“Hey, don’t smash the thing!” protested
Felicity as she reclaimed it. She shrank the book
and set it back inside his bag, then settled down
contentedly in his arms, making a pillow of him
instead.
“Gods, you’re beautiful,” said Lancelot
as he threaded his fingers through her hair again.
“I don’t know what I would have done if I’d lost
you.”
“Don’t think about it, Lance,” she
answered sleepily. “You’re stuck with me for
the next six years, at least.”
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“Mm hm,” he agreed contentedly. “A
most promising thought, that.”
“Go to sleep,” said Felicity with a yawn,
and then they did.
)0(
Several hours later, Felicity awakened to
the sound of Lancelot’s soft snoring, and it was
like music to her ears. If she had to be out
adventuring, she couldn’t choose a better partner
to be doing it with, she thought with a contented
sigh.
Lancelot stirred and opened his eyes, and
Felicity blushed that he had caught her watching
him. He smiled at her and rolled away with a
slight grimace. Wordlessly they each found a
different place to relieve themselves before
sharing the last of the water as they prepared to
go.
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“When we discover the source of that
incessant dripping noise, we’re going to need to
fill this canteen up again,” Lancelot commented
as he held it upside down to show her. Then he
shrank it and threw it into his pack again. “We
won’t last very long without water, I’m afraid,
eve
n if we did have enough food. I wish there
was some sort of a spell to refill one’s canteen.”
“Well, if you’re going to refill the thing,
you’d best make sure any water we find down
here is drinkable first,” Felicity pointed out. “So
many dragons around might make the water a bit
contaminated, if you know what I mean.”
“What a lovely thought,” he answered
with a grimace as they approached the hidden
door they’d discovered earlier. “Keep your
wand ready for any surprises, love. Just to be on
the safe side.”
“You know I will,” she answered with an
evil smile, brandishing her wand like a weapon.
Seeing this, Lancelot couldn’t help but smile.
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The pair of them stepped cautiously
through the doorway and on into the small cave
beyond. The lack of opposition as they entered
seemed almost anti-climactic.
They looked around, and found another
opening beyond, and the sound of a waterfall
echoed off the walls of the new cavern as they
stepped inside.
“Well, at least we know there’s water
around here somewhere,” said Felicity with a
smirk. “If we find the waterfall, it’ll probably be
untouched. That amount of water has to be fed
from an external source.”
“Yes, unless of course it’s been
contaminated from somewhere above,” said
Lance as he took her hand in his. “This cave
seems like it is pretty deep under the mountain.
In any case, I may know a spell to decontaminate
the water once it’s been obtained. Let’s follow
the sound to its source, shall we?”
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Felicity nodded her agreement to this
plan. “They didn’t teach us that spell in school,”
she said. “I’d like to learn it sometime, if you’d
be willing to show me.”
“I’d be willing to show you a lot of
things,” Lance smirked against her hair as he
leaned in to kiss the top of her head.
“I’ll bet you would,” she answered with
a grin.
Their footsteps echoed softly as they
trudged along, and after a while Felicity stopped
and looked around curiously.
She doused her wand, and motioned for
Lance to do the same. At first he gave her a
puzzled frown, but when he looked around yet
again, the light had not diminished.
“What is going on here
“I read about this in a book once,” she
explained. “It’s some sort of lichen that grows
deep within the earth. It gives off a glow of sorts.
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We must be nearing the water for so much of it
to be growing here.”
“At least it gives our arms a rest,” he said
as he slid his wand into his belt, and watched as
Felicity slid her own back into the side of her
boot. “Hopefully, it’s not too much farther to the
water now. The rest of my body could use a
break as well.”
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THIRTY-TWO
Felicity’s feet were aching by the time
they found the waterfall, and by the way
Lancelot had slowed and begun to limp, she was
certain his were aching as well. With a smile, she
kicked off her boots and headed for the water.
“Hey, don’t you want to make sure that
water is safe, first?” Lance asked tiredly as he
grasped at a stitch in his side.
“I’ll test it with my toes,” she told him
with a grimace.
“Stay right there,” Lance admonished
her, and waved his wand at the cascading liquid.
“It’s drinkable, but plenty cold. I’ll bet it comes
from some mountain spring very far above here,
but apparently it has not been unduly
contaminated by any sort of unwanted dragonly
ingredients along the way.”
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“That’s good,” said Felicity with
obvious disinterest as she sat on the ledge.
Her feet plunged into the water that
lapped at the rocky outcropping with a slapping
sound, and she wondered if the little lake was
fed from below as well as above. The cold felt
lovely.
“Maybe you should join me, Lance,” she
suggested with a smile over her shoulder. “You
look like you could use it.”
“Not quite yet, love,” he told her with a
slight blush. “I need to find a place of my own
to pollute first.”
She hadn’t really considered his
meaning until he disappeared behind one of the
rocks. Soon, she had figured it out whether she
wanted to or not.
“Ew, Lance, this is an enclosed area,”
Felicity complained as she held her nose.
“Well, I’m sorry, but if you can point me
in the direction of the nearest men’s room, I’m
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quite willing to go there instead,” he called back
from behind the stalagmite.
“Yes, I can see your point,” she agreed,
though she was still not very happy about it.
“I’m rather surprised I haven’t felt the need to
do that myself.”
“Much better,” said Lance as he came
out to join her. He bent down and dipped his
hands into the water to wash them. “Whoa,
that’s cold.”
Felicity chuckled. “I think it feels
wonderful on my sore toes.”
“Hm, let’s have a look,” said Lance with
a grin. He took one of her feet out of the water
and started sucking a toe, making Felicity squeal
and try to get away.
“Stop that!”
“But I wanted an icicle,” he teased her.
“Don’t soak in that stuff overlong, Felicity. It’s
very cold, and we’ve no place to get warm when
you’re finished.”
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“I suppose not,” she conceded as she
pulled the other foot out as well. Using her
wand, she warmed and dried her feet, and then
the two of them stepped off the rock and found
a place to sit down.
“How long do you suppose we’ve been
down here now?” Felicity asked Lance with a
slight frown. “I’m worried we’re going to come
back out of here and discover that twenty years
went by or something.”
“I hardly think so,” Lance scoffed.
“But Amaranth is a Mage, you know,
and she’s been down here for a very long time.
How do you know she hasn’t altered the passage
of time somehow?”
“Has anyone ever told you that
sometimes you over-think things way too
much?” Lancelot asked as he laid his head on her
lap and closed his eyes.
“Oh, so now I’m the pillow?” she
chuckled. “Tha
t hardly seems fair.”
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“It’s perfectly fair, my dear,” he told her.
“You turned me into the pillow last time.”
“I might have done,” Felicity admitted
with a chuckle. “But that’s because you make
such a good one.”
“Good, so we’re in agreement,” Lance
said with a satisfied smirk, his eyes still closed.
“You get to be the pillow.” Then he scooted up
a bit higher so that her pert breasts became the
pillow in question, and cast her a devilish grin.
“You know, you’ve got quite a habit of
making agreements with yourself, haven’t you?”
Felicity commented as she settled herself more
comfortably and laced her fingers into his hair.
“Of course I do,” he answered. “It’s what
wizards do best.”
The two of them drifted off to sleep.
Hours could have passed, and neither of them
would have cared. All that mattered just then
was their comfortable nap in each other’s arms.
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Felicity cracked open her eyes sometime
later and moaned softly as she became aware of
what Lance was doing. He had her shirt pushed
up out of the way and had proceeded to feast on
her breasts with slow, deft movements that left
her feeling quite aroused.
“Felicity!” he whispered when he
realized she’d awakened, and he crawled up her
body to reach her lips.
“What are you up to, Master Jones?” she
whispered huskily.
“That’s the trouble,” he told her between
kisses. “I appear to be quite up for anything.”
“Oh!” she gasped as he gently prodded
her with the part of him he was talking about.
Her first reaction was a heady desire to rip open
his pants for a feast of her own. Of course, she
did not do it, however much the thought
appealed to her.
