"Is that good?"
The world tried to spin away from Vimika then, but she grabbed it by the scruff and made it stay put. The collection, the illusions, the house, all of it suddenly came into such sharp focus she had to screw her eyes shut against the intensity of it. To accomplish all of those feats, the one responsible would have to have been a great mage, yes, but not the great mage. None would admit it, no matter how drunk they got, but the (loud) consensus was that Azrabaleth Kalinostrafal was an inhumane, greedy, overly-ambitious walking epithet, yet also (quietly) perhaps the greatest of them all in terms of both theory and craft.
Flipping through his original notes, Vimika could see they were the product of an obsessive, one given entirely to his work. There wasn't enough space left in the margins for anything else, and the else that was missing became more and more obvious the further she read.
"Aurelai, who was your mother?" Vimika asked.
She shouldn't have. She knew the instant she said the words, and she would have done anything to take them back.
"I never knew her," Aurelai said. "Father never spoke of her. Whenever I asked, he would leave the room. He never got angry, he would just… leave. But he was the only person here… I had to stop asking."
Vimika shook her head pathetically. Against what she was seeing, against what she'd been so stupid as to say, and most of all, the pain in Aurelai's voice. "I'm sorry. I got too excited. This is all history to me, but to you…"
"It's all right. I only knew I was supposed to have a mother because everyone in books did."
So much missing, so much unsaid, all of Vimika's education and upbringing were screaming at her to figure it out, to solve the mystery, to know, but Vimika the woman, who still felt things like empathy, kept her mouth shut and tried not to cry. There was so much pain in Aurelai's features. For as odd as her body's movements were, those of her face were perfectly normal, only now there was nothing perfect or normal about them. If anyone anywhere had ever needed a hug, it was Aurelai then, and Vimika tossed aside the priceless tome to give one to her.
Nothing within Vimika could stop it. Aurelai was a wizard, and a woman in obvious torment at being made to remember things she would rather not, and the pang of sympathy that reverberated within Vimika when she pulled them together was deafening. Even still, she held Aurelai close, the only thing that needed doing or saying.
Or so Vimika thought.
Aurelai fought against the need to cry, her chest hitching and jerking. Her hands worked against Vimika's back as she struggled with whatever was roiling within her. Grinding her forehead into Vimika's shoulder, Aurelai shook her head in denial.
"It's all right, I'm here. You can talk to me. You're not alone anymore," Vimika said.
Pressed as tightly as they were, she felt the emotional dam within Aurelai burst.
"I know... and... I'm sorry. I'm sorry I tricked you into coming here. I'm sorry your magic is gone. I'm sorry I lured you into something even I don't understand. I was just so lonely… I needed to be found... to exist... to be more than the memory of a dead man... and I saw you. Independent, living your own life, making your own choices, answering to nobody. I wanted you to be the perfect savior so badly I didn't think about you as a person, or what this place would do to you. I'm so sorry!" She burst into tears, gripping Vimika's shoulders from the back. "I was selfish! What if we can't get out? What if I trapped you here with me forever, what if Father won't let you leave with knowledge of me? What if--"
"Aurelai, stop, please. Why are you apologizing? You've done nothing wrong! I don't blame you for trying, and I'm flattered you chose me, of all people. Because I'm none of those things," Vimika said. "I just wanted to be left alone."
Aurelai pulled back, her obsidian eyes searching. "Why? Why would you want that? You have people who care about you. You have a life! A family!"
Those smoke-black eyes needed an answer, needed to try to understand why Vimika's mind had been twisted into knots over that very question. The forest had almost gotten it out of her by force, but the pleading in Aurelai's features was infinitely more effective in drawing out that particular truth.
"Because no one can hurt me that way. They can't stare, or point, or laugh. There's no one to whisper behind my back when they think I can't hear, no one to tell me they'll be there when they won't. I can't be betrayed, or lied to," Vimika said. "That's what the forest showed me. The truth."
She glanced about the library, to the priceless knowledge that soared away from her, and back to the woman standing in the middle of it. "I envy you here."
"Because you don't know. You just want to think you do. Whatever happened to you… you didn't deserve, if it can make you think that this is a way to live." Aurelai threw an accusatory finger at the passage they'd come in through. "That? Out there? Is a prison."
In one great sucking breath, Aurelai regained her composure like it had never left. She placed her hands on Vimika's temples, holding her still and giving each of them no choice but to look the other in the eye. "And so's this. I barely know you. I've seen you from afar, and maybe the Vimika I built in my mind isn't who you really are, but I doubt it. I wouldn't have chosen you if I didn't think I could trust you. I would have never shown you the books. Never let you near me."
"I don't know you, either." Vimika had to tear the words out like a rotten tooth, all at once and before she could change her mind. "I just… found you. In this impossible place that shouldn't be. How do I know you're not impossible, too? You've been so generous, so kind, but… you need my help."
"Yes, of course I do... do- you think I'm being nice just so you'll help me?"
Vimika tried to shake her head against the answer, but Aurelai held her fast. "No. I don't… know. I… Aurelai, I… you don't understand. This is all too perfect. You… just waiting for me? Showing me such beautiful things, such kindness, feeding me, keeping me warm, laughing… I don't get to have those things, Aurelai. They get taken."
"Things I've never had. Things I can't have. Things I dream of, but can't hold. More illusions. But you're real! You're here. You came and you stayed. Vimika… am I wrong to want to keep you?"
"You don't know the real me. The me that drinks too much and hides under her sheets, the me that hates herself because she's let herself be hurt too many times and is too big a coward to do anything about it except run. The me that fled as far as she could from home, but found it wasn't far enough."
It was all pouring out and Vimika didn't know how to stop it. Each word felt like poison, but she didn't know to whom. She'd been keeping it bottled up so long it had begun to fester, and now she was spraying it all over someone who had done nothing but ask for help and be nice to her.
Aurelai's dark eyes held a bottomless well of pleading. "I want to know the real you! Don't you?"
"Aurelai… I don't know what I want."
"Well I do."
With no distance between them, Vimika was being kissed before she knew that Aurelai was moving. There was no question it was her first, but Vimika yielded to it gratefully. Tears pricked her eyes as she cradled Aurelai's face, fingers working through sleek black hair. Her lips were cool and soft, insistent and genuine as they chased after Vimika's. Cool skin closed on the back of her neck and she leaned into it. The softness of Aurelai's touch, her hair, her lips, her very nature, Vimika sank into them all at the same time, losing herself in a world of sable and velvet.
She allowed Aurelai's hands to roam where they would, from her neck and down, shivering when they found the small of her back. She mirrored every movement, letting Aurelai control the pace and find her own boundaries.
But there were none, and Vimika felt unsure fingers start to work at the buttons of her tunic from the bottom up. Just grazing her breasts, they soon reached her neck and the fabric parted, whispering the length of her body to the floor.
Aurelai beheld her a moment, staring with wide, jubilant eyes that wanted, needed, and were filled to overflowing in seconds. Vimika
sucked in a gasp as Aurelai's hands found her again, closing over the bare skin of her arms, her back, fingers tracing up her spine until they closed on her face, pulling her into another kiss.
Vimika probed Aurelai's lips with her tongue. She gave in to the pressure as Vimika's fingers deftly worked the ties holding Aurelai's dress together until it, too, collapsed, sighing against her skin into a pile atop Vimika's shirt. Aurelai shuddered as Vimika's hands slid over skin smooth and unblemished, learning every curve and nuance without needing to look. Tracing down the shallow valley of her spine, they settled on Vimika's favorite curves of them all.
Aurelai tried to take a step back, her face suddenly hesitant. "I've never done this before."
"I have," Vimika breathed, and guided Aurelai gently to the soft rushes laid out across the floor.
Aurelai gasped, both of her magelights winking out as Vimika's mouth closed on the hollow of her neck and worked gently upward to find her ear. Vimika took her time sliding the length of it along her cheek until she came to the pointed tip, taking it softly between her teeth. When she touched the tip of her tongue to the tip of Aurelai's ear, there was a snapping sound of magic arcing between them, faint but unmistakable.
"I... didn't know... that could happen," Aurelai managed between breaths.
"Wizard secret. It seems you need my help in more ways than one," Vimika breathed, kissing the last word into the side of Aurelai's neck. She nuzzled against her, relishing her sudden warmth, her closeness, all doubt and hesitation banished into the darkness.
Aurelai's hair was like silk, soft and luxuriant as it slid between them in decadent sheets. Vimika's body responded, pressing closer as her lips sought out more opportunities for instruction. Aurelai writhed as she learned. Against such intense, unfamiliar stimulation, her legs worked at random without ever breaking contact, sliding up and down Vimika's.
Though Aurelai's movements were unsure, her strength was still evident as she dragged her fingers along Vimika's back, clawing at her shoulders and digging into her waist.
"More," Aurelai pleaded into Vimika's ear. "Please, show me everything!"
Vimika felt along Aurelai's arms to take her hands, entwining their fingers tightly as she pressed their noses together, looking deeply into the depths of those dark, alien eyes. "Be careful what you ask for, wizard."
With speed to match her strength, Aurelai clamped her legs around Vimika's waist, pinning them together so tightly it stole the breath from her.
"Then I won't," Aurelai said, seizing Vimika's lips once more. From between them came the hesitant probe of Aurelai's tongue, and with it magic sharp and biting, more potent than before. Vimika had been denied it so long, she pressed their bodies tighter to take in everything she could, wrapping herself in the other wizard and luxuriating in everything her body had to tell her.
Aurelai smelled of earth and clean air, of the forest and the mountains, skin cool like the early days of spring, eyes smoldering like volcanic glass not yet cooled. But even for her strength and rigid, inexperienced movements, she was soft everywhere Vimika's hands and lips fell to, responding with hitched breaths, ribboning streaks of fire down Vimika's back with every touch, every sensation she'd never felt before. Vimika grew addicted to helping Aurelai feel, to showing her everything she had been missing, and she responded with grateful and guiding hands unashamed of what they wanted.
However Aurelai moved in daylight, in darkness she was like smoke, smoothly curling around Vimika's every curve, warm and clinging, rising from the fire that burned within them both. Whispers and intimations, hands and lips, experience and utter, helpless need wound Aurelai around Vimika's patient guidance.
Writhing like a snake, Aurelai squirmed under even the barest touch, breaths coming faster and shallower, while Vimika's took their time, blooming over her breasts and down, every rise of her belly met by awaiting lips as Vimika kissed her way over a field of rolling snow to the dark forest awaiting in the far south.
A single breath had barely caressed Aurelai's apex when she suddenly cried out, her back snapping off the floor in a great arch as her release took her without warning. Low, wordless sounds erupted from her at the peak of her pleasure until after a few sharp jerks, she collapsed, chest heaving and eyes unseeing.
"Vimika?" she eventually asked the ceiling in a breathy, far-away voice.
"Yes, Aurelai?"
"I... feel... like... I'm on fire."
"That's normal," Vimika replied with no little satisfaction.
When her breath finally evened out, Aurelai raised her head, looking down the length of her body at Vimika with lethargic, almost drunken eyes. "I didn't know it could feel like that."
"Savor it." If she could do nothing else for Aurelai, she could do this, and part of that was making sure she took her time coming back to herself. Vimika's hands were still occupied running up and down Aurelai's legs when they were lifted away and their fingers once again entwined. Vimika didn't try to pull away, perfectly content to hold hands if that's what Aurelai wanted.
"I will. But... would you mind if I did it somewhere more comfortable?"
Vimika met Aurelai's eyes over the gentle swell of her belly. "Did you have somewhere in mind?"
Aurelai nodded. "Just... let me remember how to stand up first."
CHAPTER EIGHT
THERE ARE FEW stretches like the one Vimika had upon waking up the next morning. Long, tingly, like all her joints were going to come undone, but good. She knew where every ounce of blood in her body was as it raced through her, curling her toes and wooshing in her ears, like it had all been replaced with liquid lightning, only less explode-y and only slightly quieter. Her arms flew out like wings, flying over sheets that were too cold and too flat.
She'd awoken alone.
Again.
It had been… too long since she'd last awoken in someone else's bed, yet nothing had changed, including the company, and she curled back in on herself. Nestled in a pile of blankets and warmer than she had been in days, she wrapped her arms about her chest and pulled her legs in so tightly she was more egg than wizard. Cocooned in warmth her bare skin was eager to pass on to a brain that wasn't inclined to enjoy it very much, she was loathe to move more than her eyes, but even when she forced them open, there wasn't much to see. Aurelai's bedroom was even sparser than her own. The empty other pillow, a bare wall beyond, and… that was it, really.
But what more could she expect? What had she really wanted after last night? Aurelai had thrown herself at her, what was she supposed to say, no? It was better this way. The glances, the touches, the tension between them had snapped spectacularly, wasn't that enough? Aurelai was satisfied, maybe they could get to work on the real problem now that the most animal parts of their brains had had their yapping mouths stuffed stupid.
And yet.
Would it have been so bad to wake up to those fathomless black eyes? To a smile? To something other than a blank wall?
But the empty, unadorned walls turned out to have one advantage: amplifying the sounds coming down the hall from the kitchen.
The bright clink of metal, bare footsteps, the hiss of heat being applied to whatever was making the delicious smells wafting in the open door, and above it all, singing.
Vimika's blood surged, the sound of that dusky voice raised in song filling her with memories of what it had been raised in the night before, and she curled in on herself involuntarily this time, her face suddenly as warm in open air as the rest of her was under the blankets. She stilled herself so she could listen.
Aurelai sang like her birds, albeit ones that had only ever heard people sing in a tavern, leaving it gloriously off-key and belted with the raw enthusiasm of someone who didn't know any better.
The same way she does certain other things, Vimika thought.
She was a grown woman a decade and several partners on from her first time, why would such a thought make her giggle the way it would have if she still used words like 'It' and 'The Act' to des
cribe the reason her clothes were in a different room than she was?
But there was no time to lay there thinking, she might miss breakfast, and few thoughts got her out of bed faster than that.
She rolled to her feet only to realize she didn't have anything to put on.
The tantalizing hints of magic she'd tasted the night before had not heralded any great breakthrough in her magic shock, so she had no idea which of the drawers and cabinets were bespelled. She couldn't risk breaking an important one or worse, setting off some kind of booby trap. All she had were the sheets, so with a grunted apology, she yanked them off and wrapped them about herself. Clutching them closed over her chest, she shuffled into the hall.
So much did she enjoy being swathed in Aurelai that Vimika didn't even think about where she was going, following her nose and ears as if she were in a trance.
Arriving at the kitchen did nothing to shake her out of it.
There was Aurelai, in the pure piercing light of a winter's morning. Skin that had been milky was now radiant, as if it had been dusted in silver, the tips of her ears twin snow-capped peaks amidst rolling plains of sable, her silhouette shod in little more than a suggestion of white fabric as she moved with liquid grace in time to a song from the age of the truly great mages, one of magic and power, wisdom and history. Vimika knew the words, but had never heard the melody before. Few living had. It wasn't something that wizards passed down anymore.
But the sound of it, the sight of Aurelai moving to her own time with the freedom that came from a complete lack of self-consciousness, the joy in her voice, all while Vimika was clad in the sheets they had shared brought out her inner romantic. Who cared if it didn't mean anything, she wanted it. So as best she could, she mimicked Aurelai's motions as she approached from behind, swaying and moving along with her, step by step, side-to-side, until she was only an arm's length away.
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