Of Speculah Holds

Fifty Foot of Rope Inn

Halycind awoke happily. It had been a while since her sun-risings greeted her well. And these last few had been quite welcomed.

The scrolls she stole from the little dead girl, fell from their place in the inside pouch of her satchel, as she got dressed. Halycind remembered she wanted to look them over, so she read more of the pages. Viewing them in a more calm environment, she was now certain these were a devotee's pandraegkyl. Much of it read like a letter of love, yet parts of it read like the passion that could only be fueled by madness.

The necromancer, written so lovingly of, was meticulous in his ways and sound in his wisdoms and passionate in his craft. Were he not a mancer he may have almost reminded her of Siin.

The crazed woman had even written of a time she buried herself in the place where she'd first read through his own pandraegkyl. Who ever this devotee was had slowly lost her senses in reverence to this necromancer. Though Halycind could rightly see why. His command of mantia seemed quite beyond what she could ever fathom of magecraft. He, infact, seemed more fathomless than something attainable.

The curiosities in her middle had been solidly piqued and she tapped on her lips as she hummed her way from her room.

Siin’s door, across the hall, wildly opened as if he’d been waiting for Halycind to emerge.

“You going out? Right now?” he urged, wiping his eyes. “I wanna go.”

“Siin, it's just a pull order.” She looked on him with a perplexed half-squinted eye.

“I've never seen you pull...so. Can I?”

“I mean, alright. But don't expect much. It's just a lot of waiting.”

“It's a good morning for...waiting..I suppose.”

She laughed. “Clean yourself up. Let's go.”

“Wait there. Don't move.” He was gleeful, shoving happy palms forward. Then he dashed back into his inn room.

When he emerged far too short a time later the sight of him near threw her down the steps beside her. Brown leathers, well-conditioned with oils. Blue piping coursing the lines down his manly shape along the well-made seams of this armour set. And so many buckles and belts and latches and corseting laces all tipped in silver cinched him in like the tailored suits of nobles.

Only that tower of a neck peaking from his high stiff collar was visible in all these straps and corseting strings. It was mage armour. Not inexpensive and something only the Villa could procure. She’d seen this type before and now she fully understood what he’d meant about Villa Edgecasting. This was what they’d wore.

“Got new armours while I was dead, did ya?”

“Yeah, well, sort of, yesterday.” He mumbled into his own chest with a child-like pout and small voice.

“Siin Ynggrloch!”

“What you're the Gale-Killer! I can't deface your appearance by walking around looking like a bum next to you!”

She shook her head, admittedly wowed by his good looks and playfulness. He was again making her feel far too special for her comfort.

Berenice Coastal Dale

Having strapped a fierce load-out of wildergear to their armours the two hunters took to the dales just outside of Havvenchael’s Seventh Sector toward Halycind’s Pull Order location. Mossbend was slowly indeed bending into Raizebend and the sun was starting to share its wrath with this side of the world. But there was cooling mechanisms in their gear and Halycind was ever-so grateful Strider had included all the upgrades he had. She’d never felt so comfortable moving about the wild terrain of Dureyr’s outdoors.

Tearful eyes for Taphsel would have taken her long back but Siin’s playful presence had kept them all at bay and she was thankful for him too. They hopped rocks and tree limbs and baited tiny chases between them much like when they were children and it was such a relief to have him around again. Even with all she’d learned new of him, she still wanted her friend near her, all the time.

It had broken into full sun-rising before Halycind saw the trees in question and her belly reminded her she hadn’t had breakfast. She had read the Pull Order over and over just to be sure the tree she was looking for were in fact these trees. She cursed not having studied more in Ashok but she abhorred her tutors.

“You didn’t tell me we were coming to a Place of Power.” Siin shot excitement behind his wildergear masks.

The red of the groves’ leaves was so vivid it reminded her of the young blood of a beast. She had enjoyed hunting those. They tasted fresh over open fire. But then his words had pierced her hunger pangs. “I—a, whuh?”

Siin removed his head gear and snapped both his hands next to his temples. His eyesight filled with the swirling la’as of the planet. Greens. Blues. Pinks. Purples. “A Place of Power. Like the tree stubs your Those Who Where Old Helms sit on.”

Halycind was looking at him looking all around at things she couldn’t at all see. “They, whuh?”

“Cash.” He urged sounding worlds like his child-like self; he was so excited. “This whole dale is rife with magic. It feels amazing.” It was as if he were eating a good meal, he was so charged. “Take your hood off you’re safe here.”

“Uuuh, all I see are Uaxsa Leaf?” She furled her lip in grimace taking off her gear.

“Here.” He’d come round her backside, wiggling into the curves of her form to take her hands into his and wrapped them both with his own. The sensation of his slithering exhilarated movements so close on her, punched at her desires as if a wild slap from a beast had run her over. And even as his forehead dipped down to touch the back of hers and his chanting whispers rounded down to her ear, all Halycind’s body could do was frisson with sensations of his close embrace.

Then as his words in her ear finished she opened her eyes to see colours. Colours she hadn’t ever known existed.

They were all flying in the air, just wisping about like fireflies. Swooping in an out of tree trunks. Through and between grass blades. Over and inside of all the rocks and small ponds between trees.

“What is this?” She sounded a bit scared, as the sun itself had dimmed against all the shining Power of this place.

“That’s Dureyr’s lifeforce. La’as. The forces we call Power. The essences by which we weave spellcraft.”

“It’s...it’s…” She had no words.

There heads were still very close so he let her switch cheeks to look on her right side.

“How, how are you letting me see this?”

“I cast an arcane sight on you. Can you feel it?”

“I think...I can. It’s so…” She blinked slowly. “Or it’s just you.” She caved, letting a hard sensation of her desire course through her.

Siin suddenly realized he was this close to her and something like the urge to kiss her crawled up his gut to his heart.

“It tickles the skin?” He voice was low.

“Yes.”

“Thumps in your chest?”

“Mhm.”

“Weakens the steel of your thighs?”

“Sii—” She could only half whisper his name, her breathing had quickened into a near pant. Her head warmly leaned backward into his hold and they just stood there for a time watching Dureyr live and breathe with her.

“It’s intoxicating.” Her voice was only breath now as he watched her let the Power around them penetrate her senses.

“It is to us, too.”

“Do you see this because you’re a pixie?”

“Yes. All blended-men can see a Place of Power if they see nothing else.”

His breath was warm on her, warm and inviting.

“All the Speculah Holds from the White Era were grown, built, on Places of Power like this.”

She squeezed the fingers of the man wrapped around her and smiled. “Is this why they call it a Speculah Hold.”

Her words were so incredibly sweet to him, his heart grew full inside his chest. “Perhaps.” His head rolled down, as he let out a small hungry laugh, and took in the view of her pretty skin. “I’d like to think so.”

“No wonder Speculah have large litters in Buraamira.” She was speaking outside of herself, inside her true comfort, and the extension of her neck against his shoulder was driving him to chew on his own lip.

“You, uh, y-you should start your Pull Order.” He said trying to control himself.

“Oh, right.” Her head tried to wobble upward. He felt so good to nestle against. “Ever your heart. Thank you for showing this to me.”

“Um...Cilcay’ba. Thank you for taking it in.”

“Ammol, again?”

“Yes.” He whispered.

“I’m starting to really like your language.”

“I’m enjoying sharing it with you.”

Letting her go slowly, Siin stepped back from her with some steadying effort and tried not to give into both the sensuous nature of this place and the fierce attraction he held toward Halycind.

“The effect of my spell will be on you for a while. So...so you can take in its wonders with...with some space. As you work.”

“I’m sure that spell will hold.” She eased, brushing the soft petals of the red-leaf trees here.

He gulped hard, Zhuer men could be ravenous in their aroused nature and fighting his will to make her his mate here in this place was already a difficult charge.

So he breathed, a lot, and huffed out heat from his serpentine Speculah blood’s wants for her as he watched her scope out a good tree to pull pigment from.

It didn’t help she kept taking glances back to him in her own confusion of desire in this space.

They definitely wanted one another in the moment and that want was starting to take a fiery shape.

As she approached a quiet tree its red leaf-tops and white undersides flapped gently in the light breezes and tickles from the swirls of Power Halycind still saw clearly.

Taphsel would sit and talk with trees like this for a while before making any extractions. She wondered if he’d been part pixie, too.

Though she didn't have the time to converse with the lovely thing for long, she did greet it and brush the velvetiness of its foliage, all the while remembering the way Siin felt against her.