The Suitor

	“Hurry, dear, for the Stars' sakes, hurry!” Merilanth's aunt called from outside the dressing chamber. Merilanth's mother finished adjusting her daughter's veil and stepped back, eyes travelling appraisingly up and down Merilanth's silk-clad and perfumed form. “Darling of my heart, by all that's holy do not touch your face until he's gone,” she said. “House Szirion does our family great honour by considering your hand— do not smudge yourself.”
        “Yes, mother,” Merilanth said, outwardly demure but inwardly seething. As the youngest daughter she should have been free from arranged marriages, but her older sister had had the gall to run away on an adventure with a band of louse-ridden nobodies— as if she hadn't known perfectly well that Merilanth had intended to go travelling with a noble group of warriors herself, when she came of age.
        And now she was stuck here, dressed up in clothes— admittedly fine— intended for her older sister, about to be introduced to a suitor intended for her older sister, and she didn't even have the pleasure of rubbing Lerisell's nose in getting married first; she'd just had a letter from her wretched sister announcing Lerisell's recent wedding to the oafish half-orc that had been a member of her travelling party. That letter had brought Merilanth to an almost frothing rage. If she was going to be forced to play her older sister's game, she'd at least have liked to have played it better, and now she wasn't even going to be the first daughter married. She was only able to console herself with the knowledge of her sister's complete and utter disgrace, should she ever return to the city again. Not that such an occurrence seemed likely— her letters made life on the road sound too appealing for Merilanth to believe Lerisell would ever return.
        I'll have to send her a gilded invitation to the wedding, she thought. If only so Father can turn her away at the door. Run off to marry a half-orc indeed.
        “He's here!” squeaked Merilanth's aunt from outside the room as the bell at the front door rang, and Merilanth ran her suddenly damp palms down the front of her silk dress.
        “Don't rumple it!” her mother snapped. “Quickly, the kohl!” The older woman hastily applied the dark unguent to her daughter's eyes, and then ushered her out of the cramped room and into the parlour, where her aunt pressed her into the armchair that would frame her girlish figure to the best effect, and then filled the tea pot from the silver kettle on the nearby end-table. Merilanth's mother fluttered about dusting the other chairs and adjusting the drapes by the window or the tassells of the woven hangings that graced the walls. Merilanth slouched in her chair ever so slightly, until her aunt swatted her across the knees with her fan and told her to sit up. She had opened her mouth to ask where this suitor was, then, when her father's frame darkened the parlour door, and she snapped her teeth shut on the question as her mother sat jerkily down on the divan beside her sister, the two women looking for all the world like fat little birds, and then her father stepped inside and to the left, revealing the creature behind him.
        “Oh,” said Merilanth's mother, surprised. “Was your master unable to come himself?”
        Behind Merilanth's father, standing framed by the beaded curtain that hung in the doorway, was a lizardman dressed sharply in black fabric carefully creased. He bore the livery of House Szirion stitched in blue thread upon his breast, and his clawed hands were clasped carefully behind his back.
        The lizardman blinked, nictitating membranes sliding across his yellow eyes. His tongue flicked out, tasting the air briefly before he said in surprisingly good tradespeech for a creature with the wrong sort of mouth for the language: “This one begs your pardon?”
        Merilanth slouched down in her chair again and resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose. All that preparation for nothing, but even if today's encounter was off and the suitor from House Szirion had only sent a flunky, her mother would tan her hide if she broke the injunction against smudging her makeup.
        Merilanth's father, looking uncomfortable, chose to proceed as if neither his wife nor his guest had spoken.
        “Wife, Daughter, I present Ssilikesh of House Szirion.” His smile was entirely the one of a man made the brunt of a joke he desperately wishes had been played on someone else. He'd been ecstatic when House Szirion had offered his House a marriage; his was a small merchant concern, and marrying into the Szirion trade empire would be to his family's immense benefit— and then this Ssilikesh had arrived at the door.
        “Do you mean to say,” began Merilanth's aunt. “That you are to be Merilanth's...” she trailed off desperately, gesturing vaguely with one prim hand before Merilanth's mother pulled her to her feet, holding the silver teapot.
        “More tea,” she said firmly, and pulled her sister out of the parlour in the direction of the kitchen. Merilanth's father's shoulders sank as he gestured the lizardman towards the most comfortable chair in the room and himself sank dejectedly onto the divan. He had no idea what sort of message House Szirion was giving him by sending the lizadman to court his only daughter, but now that the creature was here, politeness forbade him from ejecting the reptile without the promised meeting. He could only hope his daughter had more tact than his wife— enough tact to rebuff any advance without giving offence to the representative of so powerful a House.
        For her part, Merilanth sat up and leaned forward a little bit. Now it was getting interesting.
        “You are, then, the suitor sent by House Szirion?” she asked, as Ssilikesh sat uncomfortably on the most comfortable chair in the room, trying not to crush his sinuous tail. He turned his large yellow eyes on her and flicked his tongue again. She suspected he was tasting her perfume on the air.
        “Yes,” he said at last. “This one is an adoptive son of House Szirion, sent to court the daughter of House Erebet. This one assumes that one is yourself.” He glanced awkwardly at Merilanth's father, who sat glassy eyed on the divan. “This one believes his letter of introduction was mislaid by the courier. There should have been no surprise.”
        Merilanth laughed, once, loud and clear like a bell. “Oh, but this one likes surprises,” she said, leaning forward a little more. Her father's obvious discomfort and her mother's moment of frank crisis tickled her wicked streak. Serves them right for trying to marry me off in Lerisell's place, she thought. Her father's stricken look at her words was gratifying.
        “But Father!” she went on. “This chair won't accommodate poor Master Ssilikesh's tail! Perhaps we should sit in the garden instead, where there are benches.” She fluttered her eyelashes over her veil at the lizardman, who looked taken aback, as far as she could read his facial expressions. Her father's wall-eyed look made her laugh inwardly.
        “A bench would suit this one's needs better...” Ssilikesh conceded, tearing his gaze away from Merilanth toward her father. “But this chair is perfectly serviceable.” Her father opened his mouth to speak, but Merilanth didn't give him the chance.
        “No, no, I insist!” she said. “We'll go down to the gardens. Father, be so good as to fetch Mother to chaperone us.” Her smile, behind her veil, was broad. She'd make today as traumatic for her parents as possible, and then let them try to arrange her marriage again. If she ever saw Lerisell again she'd slap her sister for leaving her in this mess.
        Before her father could respond, she'd stood up sharply and taken Ssilikesh by the arm, and was pulling him out of the sitting-room and down the stairs to the garden door. He stumbled briefly on the stairs, but caught his balance with his tail as he followed her down. She could feel the texture of his reptilian flesh through the fabric of his sleeve— tough scales smoothly overlapping— and then with a start realized she had clamped his arm to the side of her breast.
        She blushed and released her hold as they reached the bottom step, and then she was ushering him out into the garden.

        Ssilikesh, for his part, was glad to have escaped the confines of the parlour. The patron of his House had done him a great honour in sending him to court the daughter of another House, and he'd assumed when he'd been sent that the overture would be appreciated. He hadn't expected Master Erebet's shocked look at finding Ssilikesh at his door, and Madam Erebet's behaviour had made it clear that his presence was not merely surprising but unwelcome. He was used to that— he was lizardkin, after all, and belonged in the desert, not the parlours of the polite. Not all were as enlightened as his patron was, and not all lizardkin were as civilized as he was. Scorn he knew how to deal with. It was the daughter that he didn't know what to do about. She seemed to have some quarrel of her own with her parents, and she had wasted no time in drawing him into it. He eyed her with one baleful yellow orb as they descended the stairs towards the garden— she moved with a fluid grace that reminded him of the warriors of his tribe, before he had been brought in chains to this city-port on the coast. She turned the strangest shade of red briefly when his arm brushed her chest, like one of the skinpainter tribes of his kind from the east, with their chameleonic shifting hues.
        When they burst into the garden, she turned to him and spoke, breath moving her veil gently, dark eyes full of cruel smiles as she fixed them on him.
        “So tell this one about House Szirion, Master Ssilikesh,” she said loudly. “This one is dying to know.”
        “That one is mocking this one,” he said, half genuinely annoyed and half curious. “That one does not share this one's beliefs.” She turned that shade of red again at the chastisement, and her eyes went wide for a moment.
        “Oh,” she said, much more quietly. “I... apologize. I didn't mean to mock. To tell you a secret, I only wanted my parents to think I was madly in love with you” She turned a way, still red. “Please, we have to have this meeting at least: why don't you sit and we can talk? I've never met a lizardman before.”
        She gestured him towards a stone bench in the shade of the courtyard wall, surrounded by flowering vines. As they walked over he felt the hot stare of eyes on his neck, and turned to look. All three of Merilanth's relatives were staring down at them from the parlour window above.
        “Very well,” he said, sitting down more comfortably, now that his tail could swing free over the back of the bench. “This one will answer a question for that one if that one will answer a question for this one.”
        “Done,” she said, returning to her normal colour. “You ask first.”
        “What is that one's quarrel with her parents?” he asked, tasting the air again. The garden smelled of jasmine and lilac, and of Merilanth's perfume— a soft musk not unlike the desert at night.
        Merilanth smiled behind her veil. “Come closer,” she said. Ssilikesh blinked and leaned in a fraction of an inch.
        “No, closer,” she said, and she took hold of his collar and pulled his head so that his ear-hole was right next to her veil. He started in surprise and then allowed himself to be pulled, and she looked over his head at her parents in the window as she moved aside her veil and spoke. Let them wonder what sweet nothing she was whispering in the lizardman's ear.
        “I have an older sister,” she began. “Who by rights should have been married first and best between us. When she was, I was going to leave the city and take the life of the road. But my conniving sister ran away with a group of adventuring louts in the middle of the night last year, and now I must enter into an arranged marriage in her stead. My parent's are eager to marry me into your House, but less than eager to marry me to you, and I intend to make them squirm while I have the opportunity.” She paused, breath tickling Ssilikesh's ear-hole.
        “That's why I spoke as you did for my parents to hear— I was feigning a romantic fascination. I *am* sorry.” She let go of his collar and withdrew.  “Now you answer: what beliefs were you talking about when you accused me of mocking?”
        “That the lizardkin are scales from the wings of the Sun-That-Is-A-Dragon.” He shrugged, lean shoulders rising and falling gently. “It is a matter of theology this one isn't fit to discuss in detail. This one is a merchant and a fighter, not a scalepriest.”
        Merilanth leaned in, intrigued. “You're a swordsman? Show me!” she said. “I was teaching myself from old books, before Lerisell ran off and stole my future. Here!” She stood up sharply and cast about before breaking two sticks out of the trellis which held their flowering shade and tossing one to Ssilikesh. “On guard!”
        Ssilikesh caught the stick deftly, and then glanced up at the window to see what the girl's parents made of this development. All but the aunt had gone back inside, and the aunt was simply shaking her head softly and staring mournfully down into the courtyard.
        Ssilikesh turned back abruptly to Merilanth when her stick came down sharply on his shoulder,  and he hissed in surprise. She held the piece of wood in both hands, like the long blades of the city guard.
        “If you don't pay attention in a fight, your opponent will win!” she said, grinning broadly behind her veil once more and dropping into a clumsy fencer's crouch more appropriate to a single handed sword. She'd clearly been reading from too many conflicting manuals.
        “This one thinks that one has never been in a real fight!” Ssilikesh said, half-teasing, and he broke his stick into two shorter lengths, one for each hand. “This one knows, or that one would have better footwork!” and he stepped in smartly and tripped her with his tail before tapping her gently on the forehead with one stick as she went down. He'd been told time and again by his patron that fighting was beneath his decorum now that he was civilized, but this girl had started it, and defending oneself was always the correct action. It was... satisfying, to be fighting. The girl irked him pleasantly, too, and he looked forward to teaching her a lesson. Whoever won they might yet become friends; it was the way of his people.

        After Ssilikesh had knocked her over, Merilanth got up and watched his feet for a full minute before trying to move again, and this time when she stepped it was in a decent approximation of the lizardman's stance. After another minute of circling she tried to hit him again, stick lancing down towards the other shoulder. He deflected it with one short stick and then stepped in himself and swung low for her ribs with the other. She jerked back and the tip just grazed the front of her silk dress, leaving a streak of dirt and splinters of wood. These had been fine clothes.
        Mildly incensed, Merilanth swung at the lizardman again and again, but his superior skill was telling, and he deflected strike after strike, returning each with speed and precision, and all the time her dress was getting dirtier and dirtier, and her blood was beginning to boil. Her hair had long since started to come loose from its coif, and she could feel herself flushing with the exertion. Determined to hit Ssilikesh fairly just once, she stepped in, ducked under his swing, and jabbed with all her might towards his torso— only to take the swing from his other stick full across the chest, knocking her onto her back again.
        This time when she stood up there was no minute of composed observation. She shrieked once, piercingly, threw her stick at the lizardman, and then threw all of her weight into a tackle that took him in the chest. She rode him to the ground, teeth buried in his shoulder, and when she came to her senses she was lying on his chest, face pressed against the silk of his shirt, and her jaw hurt.

        “That one would have made a good adventurer,” Ssilikesh said, gingerly fingering the bite mark on his shoulder. Luckily her teeth had been unable to pierce his tough green hide. “She is a fierce berserker, and turns a terrible shade of red to frighten her foes.”
        Merilanth's hands flew to cover her mouth when she realized how indecorous she'd been, and then she blushed even more fiercely when she realized that her veil had come askew in the tussle, and that he could actually see her face.
        “I'm so sorry,” she said, getting off of him. She extended a hand to help him up, keeping her face covered with the other. “I've ruined your suit... and my dress. Come inside, we can find you some of my father's clothes.” She cast around for her veil, and found it crumpled and torn on the ground, useless.
        “Don't look,” she cautioned Ssilikesh, mortified. “This way.” She led him back inside the garden door, and down the flight of stairs to the room where a servant did the laundry, still covering her face. No one was about.
        “Here,” she said, gesturing to a rack of clothes hung up to dry. “Find something that fits. I need to find a different dress.”
        Even so, she watched as he stripped of his black silk shirt, strange muscles shifting under the  scaled green skin. There were tougher ridges of thickened scales along the lines of his shoulders and down his back, and his ribcage was lean and narrow, muscles wiry. Scars of darker green dotted his torso— some clearly made by claws, some unidentifiable. He sensed her looking and turned, yellow eyes staring curiously across his blunt, scaled snout, tongue tasting the air again. She saw two thick bands of darker green scar tissue circling his wrists, and she blushed and turned back to looking for her own clothes.
        She found a dress of her own that would do for now, but no veil. She didn't dare go back upstairs for another in her current state; her mother might be distraught, but she would certainly rouse herself for a scolding at the sight of her daughter's bare face and ruined dress— she would be forced to change here, and find something to cover her face with afterwards. She turned back to Ssilikesh, who was already wearing a pair of her father's loose trousers, and was just doing up one of his shirts.
        “Stand in the hall,” she hissed at him. “And don't peek.” She held the clean dress defensively in front of her, obscuring the one she was currently wearing. “I have to change.”
        Ssilikesh cocked his head to one side and flicked his tongue again, but a moment later he complied, taking the shirt out into the hall with him. Merilanth waited an absurd moment to see if he would peek— as though a lizardman had any interest in human women, whatever political marriage had been arranged— and then began to strip out of her soiled dress. The fight had made her sweat, and she would have liked to have bathed, but her only recourse here would have been filling one of the great laundry basins and climbing in, and she had no intention of doing any such thing. She scrubbed herself as best she could with a sheet from the nearest laundry pile, and then began to slip into the clean dress she had found.
        She was still working at the dress's fasteners when Ssilikesh darted into the room, picked her up bodily by the waist, and hauled her into the supply closet in the corner of the room, shutting the door behind them. She beat furiously against his back with one hand while she kept her dress on with the other, neglecting her bare face in her anger. It was lucky her rage had left her unable to articulate an imprecation, or she might have cried out when Sslikesh had grabbed her; as it was, she went very still when she heard footsteps outside the closet.
        “A servant in the hall,” the lizardman hissed in her ear, holding her still. His breath puffed against her face, smelling not of carrion as she might have expected, but of anise.
        “Don't lizardman usually eat...” she began, a little bewildered.
        “This one cleans his teeth most carefully,” he said, sounding a little wounded. “This one is civilized. This one knows civilized guests are not seen in their hosts' laundry rooms with their hosts' undressed daughters. This one thought it best to hide.”
        “Yes, of course,” Merilanth said. “But turn around. I'm *still* not quite dressed.” Not that he could see anything in the dark— she didn't think he could see in the dark...
        “And no peeking!” she hissed again. In the darkness she felt his shoulders rise and fall.
        “This one has no room to turn around— this closet is narrow. That one will have to trust that this one is closing his eyes,” he said, and Merilanth fumed inwardly. Outside, the sounds of laundry being piled into a tub to soak told her that they'd be stuck like this for a while.
        “Oh just— I'll turn,” she hissed, and quickly spun around, putting her foot down on Ssilikesh's tail as she did so. He hissed in pain and jerked his tail away, and she stumbled backward into him, knocking him into the wall head-first. He tripped over a jar of soap on the closet floor and began to slide down the stone wall to end up on the floor, and Merilanth, who had been leaning on him to keep her balance, fell heavily on top of him. She ended up with her back pressed against the lizardman's firm, scaled chest with only two thin layers of silk between them and her head tucked up under his long flat chin, hair now come fully loose. She could feel his heart beating against her back, tempo ever so slightly faster than her own.
        “This one hurts,” he said, sounding a little dazed, and he tried to get up. The shift unseated Merilanth, who let go of the fasteners of her dress to catch herself against the wall of the closet before she hit her own head. Her dress, never quite done up properly to begin with and then pulled by Ssilikesh's manhandling her into the closet, gave up the ghost and opened fully, exposing her pert,  golden breasts to the air. Merilanth gasped when the cool cellar air hit them, nipples stiffing slightly, and then covered herself desperately with one arm and prayed that the lizardman really couldn't see in the dark.
        “A...Are you all right?” she asked tentatively, turning to look back over her shoulder despite being able to see only the lizardman's dim outline.
        The lizardman shook his head as though to clear it, and then put one clawed hand to the back of his head.
        “This one is not bleeding,” he said after a moment. “This one will live.”
        “Can that one hear anything outside?” she asked. There was a moment of silence.
        “No,” said the lizardman. “This one hears nothing.”
        “Then by all the ever-present stars, get out,” she hissed, and throwing open the closet door, put both hands on his chest and pushed him bodily out of the closet. He stood in the light and blinked at her for a second before she shut the door in his face and began to do up her dress, blushing furiously.
        Ssilikesh, for his part, stood contemplating the closet door as he waited for the daughter of his host to emerge. He'd never seen a human woman's bared chest before, and Merilanth's mammalian anatomy had put him in mind of two large, soft-shelled serpent's eggs. He understood they had some function in the bizarre live birth humans gave, though what precisely he didn't know; his patron had never elucidated him on the subject, and he'd never thought to ask. It had been more important learning to ask for food in the tradetongue— he hadn't eaten, when he'd asked in his own language.

        The door opened again, and Merilanth came out of the closet, once more properly dressed but still missing her veil. She didn't bother to hide her face—Ssilikesh had already seen it— but she couldn't force back the blush that darkened her cheeks.
        “Upstairs,” she said, looking Ssilikesh firmly in the eye and daring him to comment. “I need to find another veil, and to fix my hair. I wanted Mother to be uncomfortable, but if she sees me like this she might die of apoplexy.” Ssilikesh bowed at the waist and gestured for her to lead the way. It was an unnatural affectation for the lizardman, but bowing had been drilled into him as a sign of respect by the patron of his House, and it also brought his head level with Merilanth's chest. He eyed the front of her dress surreptitiously as she passed him. He hadn't given her bizarre anatomy much thought previously, but his brief exposure to her rounded form had stuck in his mind as a curiosity.

        Merilanth led the way up the stairs from the cellar, pausing every few steps to listen for the sounds of her relations. They reached the top of the steps, and the coast was clear.
        “Wait here,” she hissed at Ssilikesh, and abandoned him in the hall at the top of the steps to race for the way up to her own room before her mother or aunt could discover her. On the way past the kitchen she froze, hearing her parents' voices within.
        “...must be polite,” her father said. “Szirion is an influential house, we can't insult them—
        Her mother cut him off. “They insult us by sending this reptile to court our daughter...”
        “Even so, dearest, we must at least have him for...”
        They hadn't heard her. She continued past, voices receding behind her, only to jerk forward and dash around the corner as she heard the kitchen door open behind her. She slipped up the steps to the sleeping chambers and out of sight, and breathed a sigh of relief. She made it to her room undiscovered and found herself a veil and a brush, and spent a moment covering her face and hastily putting her hair to rights before straightening her dress, squaring her shoulders and heading back towards the stairs.


        Downstairs, Ssilikesh stood a little forlornly in the hall, unsure what to do next. He could just leave— he thought Master and Madam Erebet would be more relieved than insulted, and Merilanth was a strange snake who couldn't be predicted, and was perhaps safer simply avoided. He was just resolved to find his way back to the door when he heard two sets of footsteps coming down the hall toward him. He turned, tongue flicking, and found his hosts coming down the corridor towards him, he striding as manfully as he could muster, she sidling along behind her husband like a reluctant crab.
        “Master, ah, Ssilikesh,” the husband began. “We are taking a late lunch on the terrace. Would you care to...join us?”
        Ssilikesh blinked, imagined, briefly, simply turning and making for the door, and then bowed.
        “This one would be honoured,” he said.

        Merilanth came down the stairs from the sleeping chambers to find her mother waiting for her at the bottom of the steps. She froze halfway down— her mother went still too, and looked at her. They eyed each other warily for a moment. Merilanth's change of veil and dress didn't go unnoticed— Merilanth's mother's eyes tightened a little bit, but she said nothing.
        “Where is Father?” Merilanth ventured. Her mother visibly unclenched her jaw before answering.
        “Your father is on the terrace. We're having lunch,” she said. “Please join us.” It wasn't a request.
        Merilanth came the rest of the way down the stairs. “Is Aunt Ferrila joining us?” she asked.
        “Your aunt fainted,” her mother said, a note of accusation shading her voice. “She's asleep in the  parlour.”
        Merilanth should have blushed now if ever, but all things considered she couldn't bring herself to feel guilty about her aunt; it seemed like a minor infraction after being very nearly naked in a closet with very nearly a stranger. Instead she creased her brow with feigned contrition and tried not to smile behind her veil.
        Merilanth's mother led her out onto the terrace, where her father sat on one side of a rectangular wooden table overlooking the garden down below, and Ssilikesh sat on the other. The lizardman fixed her with a look when he spotted her that despite his reptilian features she has no trouble translating into a sort of “save me”. The silence on the terrace was thick and awkward. Her father chewed his food stolidly and looked out over the garden, avoiding Ssilikesh's eye, and Ssilikesh picked mournfully at the flatbread and cheeses on the table and eyed the fruit hanging over the edge of the terrace on an encroaching branch.
        There were two chairs left at the table, and Merilanth's mother sat down beside her husband before Merilanth could so much as open her mouth, leaving only the seat beside Ssilikesh. Merilanth shook her head minutely in exasperation and sat. The silence continued unbroken, save for her father's chewing.
        “Do you *eat* cheese?” Merilanth asked Ssilikesh after a moment, and her mother almost spit out her food at the rudeness of the question— as though ignoring him completely were more polite.
        “This one does not,” said Ssilikesh, with the good grace to look embarrassed. “This one's kin do not herd mammals.” The sudden thought that of course *that* was what breasts were for made him pause for a moment as he tried not to imagine human women making cheese— a process he didn't know anything about and which took on a slightly horrific aspect in his imagination— and failed.
        “This one doesn't eat bread, either,” he concluded after a moment, banishing the thought of Merilanth stripped to the waist and holding a giant wooden ladle. “This one's kin do not farm, also.”
        Merilanth sighed, and refrained very carefully from glaring at her mother.
        “What do you eat? Meat?” she asked.
        “Yes. Or fruit. Sometimes... insects.”
         Merilanth's mother blanched, and her father's head swung around, brows furrowed. He opened his mouth wordlessly, hesitant to ask what everyone at the table was wondering.
        “Wild ankheg,” Ssilikesh said. “Also scorpions, sometimes.” Merilanth's eyebrow rose, and her parents simply gaped at him.
        “This one doesn't require ankheg,” he said. “but perhaps a little fruit...?”
        Merilanth's mother got up jerkily and hustled off to find something for Ssilikesh, while her father stared at him.
        “Don't ankheg spit acid?” Merilanth asked— she'd read extensively about local perils, back when she'd still thought she would take to the road some day. Ssilikesh shrugged.
        “Often,” he said.
        “How...?” her father managed.
        “With spears.”
        And that was the end of the conversation until Merilanth's mother came back with a bowl of hastily sliced figs.
        “That one has this one's gratitude,” Ssilikesh said, and began to eat, swallowing pieces of fig whole.
        Merilanth's mother, who kept looking at Ssilikesh as though at any moment he might produce a scorpion from inside his shirt and eat it in front of her, finished her own food as quickly as she possibly could and then excused herself. Merilanth's father, who had either a stronger stomach or a weaker imagination, managed to stay for a little while longer before “pressing business” drew him away, leaving only Merilanth herself and Ssilikesh at the table.
        “Ignore them,” Merilanth said after a moment. “*I* do.” Ssilikesh nodded and pushed his bowl away, empty of figs.
        “This one is used to such things,” he said. “City-folk do not like lizardkin.” Merilanth snorted.
        “Father and Mother are stodgy. This one likes that one just fine.” Ssilikesh furrowed his scaled brow.
        “That one mocks again,” he said.
        “Teases,” she corrected. “I'm teasing. Tell me about hunting ankheg.”
        “This one has not hunted in several years,” Ssilikesh said. “But when this one lived in the desert with his clutchmates, this one hunted often. Ankheg eat the roots of the green things of the oasis, and eat the animals that come to drink. A drummer would pound a stretched skin to sound like the footsteps of an elephant, and two, sometimes three ankheg would come to hunt. This one and others would wait with spears in the tops of the oasis trees, and spring down on the ankheg when they burrowed up out of the sand. Before the hunt, the warriors would wrap themselves in skins and bathe in the oasis pool, and then roll in the sand. When the ankheg spit their acid, the sand would smoke and sizzle, and the hunters would cast off their skins and stab the ankheg with their spears. Ankheg can only spit once in a hunt.”
        Ssilikesh shrugged.
        “This one is civilized now. Hunting is for the people of the desert.” There was a wistful note in his voice.
        “What happened?” Merilanth asked. She only rarely saw lizardmen in the city, and never one dressed in real clothes. They sometimes came to the outskirts to trade with the merchants who pitched their tents outside the city walls, and she'd seen them from her balcony on occasion, dressed in loincloths or rough hides. They sold the things that they sometimes found out in the sands- relics from ancient cities, or strange bones from bizarre animals, and once she'd heard her father say they sold the goods they stole from legitimate trade caravans. It was strange to see one living within the city's walls.
        Ssilikesh was silent for a long moment before he spoke again, eyes on the emptied bowl of figs but not registering it. “This one was taken by slavers,” he said, voice flat. “And auctioned off in the slave market. The head of House Szirion bought this one, and taught this one the ways of the city. These were hard lessons— as hard as hunting ankheg for the first time. This one suffered as many bruises for failure in both places, and sometimes did not eat for days. This one learned quickly— hunger is a clever teacher. Now this one trades goods under House Szirion, and defends the House's caravans when called. It is a life.” He put his hands flat on the table, and Merilanth saw again the bands of scar around his wrists, and this time recognized the marks of manacles.
        Merilanth hesitated for only a second, and then put her hand on his shoulder.
        “It sounds awful,” she said. “He had you beaten?”
        “He would watch as men hit this one with sticks or leather whips. This one's scales grew thick. The desert was no kinder— in the sands, other lizardkin would try to steal the tribe's eggs. Some seasons the hunters feasted on the ankheg, and some seasons the ankheg feasted on the hunters. Some seasons there was no rain for many months.”
        He lapsed into silence, and turned to look at her with his yellow eyes. She stared back, waiting for him to blink or say something else, but he remained wordless.
        “When I was a child I wanted more than anything to see the desert,” she said at last. “Our family lived with my Grandfather, before Father began to do well enough as a merchant to move us here. Grandfather had a library, more books than you've ever seen, or... I don't know, maybe you've seen thousands of books. Szirion is a rich and powerful house. But I had never seen so many. Grandfather would read to me and Lerisell, and when we were old enough he let us into the library on our own. We would hide from Mother there, between the shelves. Lerisell read poetry and tittered over The Perfumed Garden, but I read adventure stories. I read about the boy who found a golden lamp in the desert and commanded an army of djinni to build him a palace, and I read about the wise man and the ghul who travelled from place to place, the wise man healing the sick and the ghul devouring the bodies of plague victims to stop the spread of sickness. I read about the Caliph's Royal Guards and their journey to find the most beautiful princess in the Caliphate for their master to wed. I wanted that life— I still want that life.”
        She turned, and looked out over the garden wall at the minarets outlined against the horizon. It was already late afternoon, and the sun was beginning to set.
        “I wanted more than anything to live the life of the road. I was going to run away... next year, or the year after. I was going to find travelling companions and explore ancient tombs and become the apprentice of a powerful sorceress with a beautiful, black-haired son, and I was going to be happy. And now Lerisell has run away instead and I must marry *you*.”
        The last word came out mournful and accusatory, on the tail end of a fantasy that seemed almost childish now, and she instantly regretted saying it.
        “I'm sorry,” she said. “I don't mean to say...”
        “This one understands,” he cut her off. “This one expected to take one of the daughters of the tribe for his mate, and have many eggs. This one is willing to make a... a political arrangement, for the sake of the House, but this one knows the surprise that one must have felt. If that one would like, this one will leave, and that one can marry who she likes. That one's parents will approve— this one believes he has shocked them enough for that.”
        He got up from the table then, and bowed formally again before turning and heading stolidly for the door, feeling, suddenly and surprisingly, achingly tired. He was almost to the door when Merilanth's voice stopped him.
        “You said the desert was no kinder than the city. But... you miss it, don't you? You miss being out there.”
        He cocked his head to one side for a moment, and said without turning: “Yes.”
        He heard her chair scrape against the floor of the terrace as she stood up too, silk dress rustling softly.
        “Come with me,” she said. “I want to show you something.”

        She led him down into the garden again, carefully, needing to be certain they were unobserved. She needn't have worried; neither her parents nor her aunt were anywhere in evidence, and it was getting darker out- they'd likely be ensconced deep inside the house by now, commiserating with each other.
        In the garden, she led him through to the far corner, where a thicket of pomegranate trees grew up against the wall. Looking around one last time, she ducked underneath, gesturing for Ssilikesh to follow. He had to crouch down where she had merely stooped— he was a head taller than her— but once inside he found he was able to stand again. He looked around and found himself in a small hollow in the stand of trees. Merilanth stood with her back to the wall, her eyes searching his over her veil. He wasn't sure what she was looking for. After a moment, she spoke.
        “You must never tell my parents about this,” she said. “But somehow I don't imagine you will.” And with that she pointed to the pomegranate tree behind him, and he turned to see a rough, natural ladder of branches in the tree, bark worn smooth by regular use.
        “That one sneaks out,” he said, comprehending.
        “Are you coming or not?” she said, already beginning to climb.

        The view from the top of the garden wall was breathtaking. The setting sun made the towers of the city into pillars of jet against a backdrop of beaten copper, the sky flaming red and orange. They only stayed for a moment before Merilanth slipped over the top of the wall and onto the roof of the building next to them, and Ssilikesh followed. They shimmied down a flowering vine that grew thickly up the back of the building, and then they were around the corner and in the street, where merchants leading camels and women with clay pots balanced on their heads passed them by, returning home for the day.
        “Father and Mother think I never leave the house except to go to Temple with them every week,” she said. “But I suppose being out here isn't the same for you as it is for me. You can come and go as you please.” Ssilikesh said nothing, thinking about the city gates and wondering why he had never simply walked out of them and not looked back, when his patron had first let him out into the streets on his own. Maybe it was because he'd had nowhere to go.
        “In any case,” she continued, almost dancing down the street. “This isn't what I wanted to show you.”
        She led him through winding streets he knew and through streets he didn't, and once she'd taken his hand to pull him down a narrow alley, and his claws had tightened over her fingers almost imperceptibly before she had withdrawn her hand. They came at last to a narrow spire near the city wall, standing alone in a tiny courtyard, next to an ancient well.
        “An astronomer lived here,” she said. “He was a friend of my grandfather's. We visited him once, when I was little. The first time I crept out I came here just to see if I could find the place— I'd never navigated the city streets on my own before. The tower was empty— he'd died, I don't even know how long ago. No one's ever moved in— his books are even still here, mostly. Now no one but me can get inside; I stole the key and hid it.”
        He watched as she began to haul the bucket up out of the well and then plucked a tarnished silver key out of a crevice on the bucket's underside. She unlocked the narrow door, and led him inside.
        The interior of the tower was cramped and narrow just like the outside. Stacks of ancient books lined the walls— he flicked his tongue, and tasted dust and more dust on the dry air. A thin, rickety staircase spiralled up around the inner wall of the tower, and Merilanth took his hand again and pulled him up it. Carpets woven in fantastic patterns covered each landing. Merilanth led him up past three floors before coming out into a wider space that took up the entire upper floor of the tower. The ceiling was domed, and let in the light in a thin line that cut from the peak of the dome down to it's edge.
        “Help me with the chain,” Merilanth said, and Ssilikesh turned and saw her standing next to a vast, brassy telescope, swathed in dust, that had been pushed over to the edge of the room; she was holding a massive chain looped through a series of pulleys, each link as thick around as her wrist. He went over and together they hauled on the heavy links, and the line of light that split the ceiling cracked and groaned and, widening, opened to reveal a fat crescent of red sky.
        “His observatory,” Ssilikesh said. He'd seen something similar once, in his patron's house.
        “Look there,” she said, and pointed outside.
        The top of the tower was above the level of the city wall, and there were no taller buildings between the two. Looking out of the observatory, they had a clear view of the sun setting over the desert. Its bottom edge was just touching the horizon now, and it lit the dunes with a fiery, fading light, each rocky outcrop casting a long shadow that striped the sand like a tiger's back. As he watched, the sun sank lower and lower, the horizon swallowing it from the bottom up, and the long shadows grew longer and darker, the light fading as the stars began to come out overhead— constellations with names that he'd learned in his youth and other names that had been drilled into him by his patron. Behind him there was a rustling sound, and he turned to see Merilanth piling small pillows into a sort of nest in the centre of the room. She blushed when she saw him looking.
        “I bought most of them legitimately. I only stole two or three from home. I like to come here to watch the sunset, and the stars, but the floor is hard and it gets cold at night with the dome open like this.” Then she sat in the pile of pillows and sank into them, making herself comfortable before gesturing for Ssilikesh to join her. He weighed the idea for a moment and then sat. The pillows propped him up so that he could see out of the dome, and they were agreeably soft. He snaked his tail into them and leaned back.

        Merilanth glanced at Ssilikesh as he sat beside her, and then began to remove her veil. Her mother wasn't here to scold her, and she had decided she was through being embarrassed in front of the lizardman.
        “At Temple, Father always prays to the Vizier,” she said,laying her veil aside and pointing to the constellation as it appeared in the sky. “Who oversees wealth and good governance. And Mother and I pray to the Nightingale, who oversees beauty and marriages and the like. But when I come out here like this, alone, I pray to the Wanderer and the Witch. I pray for a life on the road, for mysteries and magic, for the chance to go somewhere—anywhere— that isn't here.”
        She turned back to look at Ssilikesh, and he flicked his tongue and remained silent for a moment before pointing one claw at the sky, tracing out other patterns for her.
        “To the lizardkin these are scales from the wings of the Moon-That-Is-A-Dragon. When the Sun-And-The-Moon-That-Are-Dragons fought, the Moon bit the Sun and he dove down to escape her, and he shook his wings and the scales that fell became all of the scaled creatures- first the great serpents, then the great lizards, and then us. Then the Sun rose up and bit the Moon, and she climbed high to escape him, and she shook her wings and the scales that scattered became the stars, who are her servants. And the Sun and the Moon fought until they could fight no longer, and then they mated. And the Moon laid a great clutch of eggs, and these hatched the twelve dragon clans. Now the Sun circles the world to find treasures fabulous enough for the Moon's hoard, and the Moon follows him to see he comes to no harm.”
        He traced out a constellation for her— the Wanderer. “That constellation is the Shess-Shir. They are a group of the Moon's servants who guard a part of her hoard, which lies behind the blackness of the sky. These stars are responsible for the secrets that the Moon keeps. And those”— he pointed to the Witch—“guard the weapons in her hoard. These are good stars for that one to pray to. A traveller needs secrets and steel.”
        “Do you ever think about your tribe?” she said. “Are they looking up at the same stars you are?”
        “No,” he said. “This one's tribe is in the Moon's hoard now.”
        Merilanth turned to look at him again. He was still, like a stone effigy of a lizardman—except she could feel his tail twitching through the pillows.
        “In the Moon's hoard?” she asked, already guessing the nature of the answer.
        “The Sun-That-Is-A-Dragon collects treasures for the Moon's hoard because he is still courting her, even though they have many children. All things precious and golden are pleasing to the Moon, just as all things silver are pleasing to the Sun, because these things remind them of each other. Nothing is more precious or more golden than the spirit of a warrior, and every lizardkin is a warrior and a hunter straight from the egg. When a lizardkin dies, the Sun-That-Is-A-Dragon takes his spirit to the Moon's hoard when he passes overhead, to join the tribe's ancestors. Those stars”— and he pointed out another constellation—“are the ones responsible for guarding the dead, and they are the only stars now that this one's tribe sees.” He lapsed into silence again, and Merilanth put her hand once more on his shoulder.
        “I'm sorry,” she said. “When slavers took you—”
        “They took this one only,” Ssilikesh said. “And left the rest for the ankheg.”
        Merilanth took his face in both hands, turning him to face her. The scales of his face were soft and leathery, like the scales of his hands. She leaned in and kissed his brow, which was rougher but still not as rough as she'd expected him to be.
        “I'm sorry,” she said again, breath warm against the top of his long head. “I should have known.”
        Ssilikesh's breath was hot against her throat when he spoke. “It isn't that one's fault,” he said. “That one need not apologize.”
        “It wouldn't be so much of a hardship to marry you after all,” she said after a moment, if only to break the silence. “We get along, and Mother would never be able to hound me for grandchildren.” Ssilikesh snorted into her neck and then reared back to look at her face.
        “This one thanks that one,” he said. “For treating this one as an equal, and for being kinder than the desert or the city.” He blinked at her once, transparent membranes sliding across his eyes, and then she leaned in and kissed him again, on the mouth, or at least the part of his long mouth that was on the front of his face. He reared back in surprise, and his tongue flicked out and tickled her chin for all of a second.
        “They don't do that in the desert?” Merilanth asked, voice shaky, determined not to blush again.
        “They... No. No they do not.” Ssilikesh said, sounding, for the first time, flustered. He had tasted dry and a little like the anise she had smelled on his breath earlier.
        “I suppose your teeth make kissing dangerous,” she said, leaning in as he sank further into the pile of pillows. Ssilikesh's hand rose unconsciously to rub his shoulder where she'd bitten him while sparring.
        “That one's teeth also,” he said. “Daugh... Merilanth. What does that one think she is doing?”
        “I don't know,” she said. She sighed and leaned back, taking her hands away from his face. “Maybe something foolish.” She laughed once, short and almost bleak, and began to knuckle at her eye, smearing the carefully applied khol.
        “I suppose I won't be needing this today,” she said, and wiped her hand on a nearby pillow, leaving black streaks. “I'm certainly not going to attract a husband.” She started on the other eye, smudging herself even worse.
        “Stop,” said Ssilikesh, softly.
        “I don't care about the pillows,” she said.
        He leaned in abruptly, blunt head nudging her hands out of the way, and pressed his forehead into hers. His hot breath puffed out and tickled her chin.
        “This is what is done in the desert,” he said. He cocked his head and rolled his eye to see hers, lined with smudged khol, an inch from his own. His yellow orb held her brown one for an instant, and then Merilanth blinked, and put her hand on the back of his head.
        “We're a mess, aren't we,” she said.
        “Yes.”
        “I think there's a bottle of wine somewhere downstairs— another of the astronomer's relics.”

        Merilanth found the bottle she'd vaguely remembered in the disused kitchen on the first floor, and found a rag that she wet in the well and used to clean her eyes properly. When she climbed back up to the observatory she found Ssilikesh sitting at the edge of the observatory floor, his feet dangling over the side, head tipped back to look at the stars. She sat beside him, and leaned into his shoulder when the  cool wind off the desert swept through the gap in the observatory dome.
        She handed the bottle of wine to Ssilikesh, who uncorked it with his teeth and handed it back to her. She took a sip, larger than she's intended, and passed it back.
        “Tell me about your family,” she said. “You had...clutchmates? Is that like siblings?”
        “Yes,” he said, and tilted his head back to pour some wine into his open mouth. He managed it without splashing, and flicked his tongue, savouring the taste of the cool air and the warmth of the wine.
        “We were hatched from the same clutch of eggs,” he went on. “There were seven of us. This one was third out of the shell. The smallest couldn't crack her egg, and the other six helped our mother bury her that night.”
        “You remember?” said Merilanth. “I can't remember anything until I was already three years old.” Ssilikesh shrugged and handed the wine back.
        “The clutch was a year in the egg. The desert is harsh, and the young must hatch able to survive.
The clutch lived on our parents' backs for a year after hatching, but we learned to walk quickly.”
        He lapsed into silence, and the two of them simply sat for a while, sharing the bottle of wine. The moon rose late that time of year, and when it crested the horizon Ssilikesh made a gesture of obeisance with one hand, and Merilanth tried to imagine the orb was a vast and powerful dragon.
        “Grandfather always told us that the moon was an empty palace of marble and ivory, where the stars once dwelt before the Creator ordered them to oversee the Wheel of Heaven. It always seemed so lonely,” Merilanth said.
        “The Moon is never lonely, even when she is not with the Sun,” said Ssilikesh. “She has this one's clutchmates to keep her company, and many others beside. We are the lonely ones until we rejoin them, unless we find company here.”
        “Come back inside,” Merilanth said, the wine warm in her belly.

        This time when she pushed him into the pile of pillows he didn't resist. She sank down after him, and pressed her forehead into his, breath hot and smelling, now, of wine. His eye followed hers, and there was no hesitation between them. His tongue flicked out and tickled her throat. He smelled like leather and sand. Her hands found his collar and gripped it as she turned and tucked her face into the side of his neck, nuzzling. His hand came up tentatively to her back, and then clutched her, crushing silk beneath his fingers when she grazed his scaled skin with her blunt teeth. His tongue flicked out again and fluttered against her skin, deliberate now, exploring. She tasted of jasmine and sweat, and he pursued her musk to the hollow of her collarbone, pulling aside the throat of her dress with his other hand. She gasped when his teeth grazed her skin, her delicate flesh far more sensitive than his tough hide,  his teeth sharper. She pulled back and tugged on his collar until he relinquished his hold on her and she was able to pull his shirt up over his head and off of him. As soon as his head was free he pushed his snout back into her neck while she fumbled with the fasteners of her own clothes, breath shaky now.
        The last button parted and her dress fell open once more, her round breasts perking in the cool night air. Ssilikesh reared back is head to get a better look, and then pressed his snout into her bust, breath hot on her skin, tongue raising goosebumps where it tickled her flesh. Her breath hitched when his teeth grazed the soft arc of her breast and the scales of his chin brushed one pert nipple, and then stopped completely for a moment when Ssilikesh paused contemplatively and said quietly “That one does not produce cheese, yes?”
        She burst out laughing, and Ssilikesh pulled back again and gave her a hurt look.
        “No,” she finally managed. “No this one does not.” And then she pressed in again, nibbling on the underside of his jaw. Her breasts were ground into Ssilikesh's scaled chest by her weight, and her breath hissed and she pressed harder, dragging her sensitive buds back and forth over his textured skin.
        Ssilikesh's tail coiled itself around her leg, and she stroked it with one hand while she worked at his belt with the other. He gave a gasping hiss when she squeezed the thick, muscled length between her fingers, and she abandoned his neck to rear up, sitting on his legs while she stripped his belt out of his pants and tossed it aside. It skittered across the floor and fell out the open side of the observatory to plummet four stories to the ground, but neither of them noticed or cared. Belt removed, she worked his pants down to mid thigh before getting foiled by the unfamiliar double bend of his legs. He sighed, wrapped both hands around her waist, and lifted her bodily off of his lap to kick his pants away.
        Merilanth tried to bend down for a closer look at what seemed like smooth skin between Ssilikesh's legs, but he still held her firmly by the waist, and instead of lowering her back down he pushed her over onto her back in the pile of cushions, and rose up to bend over her and bury his face in her chest again. Her hands flew to the back of his head as he nipped and tickled with his forked tongue,  crossing from the top of one breast to the other, circling back down and around to brush against her nipples with his snout, hot breath making them twitch while his tongue flitted across their undersides. Her hands traced the ridges of his crown and the thicker knots of scar on his shoulders as he worked his way lower, parting her dress with his clawed hands. She shuddered as he pulled her dress apart and worked his way down her stomach, and only bucked her hips when she heard fabric tear over her pelvis. Her toes curled when his hot breath shuddered across the bared cleft of her sex, and she bit her lip at the sensation, and in anticipation.
        She was kept waiting.

        “There are... two openings.” Ssilikesh said after a moment, eyeing them with suspicion. His grasp of mammal anatomy was improving now that he had some of it in his actual, literal grasp, but this still threw him. The females of the tribe had had but a single cloaca, as all sensible creatures did, and confronted by Merilanth's unexpected variety, he wasn't sure what to do.
        “You...” Merilanth began, and he looked up from the enigma between her legs to see the confused expression crossing her face. “You only have...?” She shook herself, as though to clear the though from her head, and slipped one tentative hand down the length of herself to slightly part the soft folds that concealed the front opening. “Th-that's the one you want,” she said, flushing red once more. Without her veil, Ssilikesh could see the change it brought to her whole face, as her cheeks darkened and her skin glowed. She kept her eyes on his, however, and he nodded before flicking out his tongue.
        Her breath hissed when he brushed across the moistening slit she'd directed him towards, and he tasted her sweat, and the lingering trace of her perfume, and a sweetness unlike the taste of another lizardkin. He flicked his tongue again, more intently, and she gasped, and the hand that had spread her folds shot to the back of his head and ground his snout into her increasingly damp sex. He turned and instinctively nipped at the inside of her thigh, and then instantly regretted it, remembering the softness of her skin, the lack of scales— but she arched her back and dug her fingers into his crown.
        Her skin had gone from merely warm now to hot, like sun-warmed stone, and despite the cool air Ssilikesh felt none of the night-time lethargy that normally began to set in about now. He continued to explore Merilanth's flesh while small gasps and moans began to escape her lips. He dug in with his tongue now, no longer licking but pushing forward, inward, until his narrow jaws passed over her pubic bone and the fine, dark scruff above her sex tickled the roof of his mouth, the entire length of his tongue writhing within her, lapping at the strange juices that flowed as she clutched his head and neck. It was only an instant before her thighs clamped down around his head and her back arched again, and he withdrew his long, narrow tongue, and nipped at her thigh again. She groaned and pulled at his face, drawing him up her body until they were eye to eye again. She pressed her forehead into his, said, voice shaky but tone firm “Now you show me yours.” He drew back, and showed her.

        Merilanth's legs trembled as she came down from the first orgasm she hadn't had to draw out of herself, and she swallowed in anticipation as she watched Ssilikesh draw back at her command to reveal his own genitals. What she saw intrigued her.
        What had seemed, confusingly, like smooth skin in the brief moment she had seen it earlier, now lay exposed between the lizardman's legs as he knelt above her in the nest of pillows: a narrow slit the length of her hand, protected by fine, pale green scales, that for an instant seemed disturbingly like her own still-moist opening. Then, before she could wonder just what she had gotten herself into, the slit parted as a long, partly flaccid organ began to emerge and grow more rigid.
        It was still green, but the green of the insides of some fruit, a green so pale it was almost white, and it was tapered from a slightly pointed knob at the tip to a widening pattern of ridges at the base.
“That's...” she began, and then trailed, tentatively reaching for it. It was warm in her hand, warm and softer than any other part of his body, and his tongue flicked out as he hissed at her touch. She withdrew an inch, and looked back to his face, but he shook his head. “That one may... continue.” he said. “This one is unharmed.” Her hand was back on his length instantly, her fingers exploring the pattern of ridges that circled his base just outside his sheath. The skin of the thing was soft, yes, but the organ itself was as firm as unripe fruit. She explored for a moment more, before pulling her hand away again.
        “Sit down,” she said, placing her hands on his shoulders.
        “Merilanth,” he began. “That one need not—” But she pushed him down into the pillows as she began to line herself up over his long, narrow shaft.
        “Yes,” she said. “This one does.” And she dropped her hips, impaling herself on him.
        She actually cried out a little at that, at the sudden pain of it, and then bit her lip. Ssilikesh looked down at where they were joined, and then whipped his head back up to her face, concern in his eyes. “That one is bleeding, this one will withdraw and...”
        She shook her head, her breathing still shallow.
        “That's... That happens,” she said. “With mammals. I'm fine.” And she began to slide herself up his shaft, feeling her walls clinging to him after the brief, sharp shock of penetration. She slid up until he was almost falling out of her, and then began to drop back down, more slowly now, while it still hurt a little. She was still wet from his tongue, earlier, and it began to gradually get easier.
        “When... when Lerisell was tittering over The Perfumed Garden,” she said breathlessly. “I... I wasn't always...nnh...reading... reading fairy tales.” She dropped her gaze, and then looked up at him from under her lashes as she began to pick up speed, working Ssilikesh deeper into herself with each thrust of her hips. “You could... put your hands on my hips.”
        He stared at her a moment as she withdrew once more, only to drop herself down onto his shaft again, her slick juices beginning to run down him and pool in the ridges at the base of his cock, and then he grunted once, explosively, and dug his fingers into the soft flesh of her buttocks and clamped his jaws into her shoulder again, teeth pressing divots into her skin, drawing just the faintest hint of blood.
        This time, when she cried out, it was only partly at the shock of pain. Ssilikesh's tail writhed behind him, knocking pillows askew, and he began to thrust his own hips up to meet hers coming down, grunting each time at the slap of flesh. The transparent membranes came down over his eyes again and didn't come back up, blurring his vision ever so slightly as his instincts took over and the force of his thrusting increased.
        Ssilikesh's breath came in hot blasts against Merilanth's shoulder, and hers came in gasps and pants as she pressed her face into the side of his neck and clutched at his shoulders, nails digging at his scaled skin. Her hair was wild about her neck and down her back, and sweat plastered her skin, her bare breasts scraping against the lizardman's chest as she rode him.
        “I... I think...” she whispered into his earhole, feeling another wave of heat building in her centre. He grunted, and his hands came up from her buttocks to her back, pressing her against him. His jaws unlocked, and he tucked his snout in under her chin, tongue flicking at the sweat pooling there.
        “This one... as well” he said, and then a moment later words lost all meaning as the dam broke, and wave after wave of pleasure swept over her, crashing from her still-shaking hips down to her curling toes, and up until her scalp tingled and her skin flushed even darker.
        In the same instant, Ssilikesh erupted within her, shooing hot, ropey strands up into her depths, painting her walls with a heavy, oily coating. He twitched twice more, sending one last spurt into her, and then he collapsed backwards, still inside of her, and pulled her down with him so that she lay on his chest, her legs still entangled around his waist.
        They lay like that in silence for a long time.

* * *

        Merilanth rocked the bundle in her arms gently while Ssilikesh prodded at the fire with the blackened end of a long stick.
        “He has his father's eyes,” she said, and he glanced up at her before turning back to the fire, leaning his back against her knees while she sat on the collapsed pillar they'd made their camp beside.
        Merilanth looked across the fire to where her sister, Lerisell, sat, wrapped in her husband's thick green arms. The half-orc had a surprisingly gentle smile on his face, and Lerisell leaned into him, her eyes glowing with pride.
        “I'm glad you got to see him,” she said, smiling wistfully at Merilanth. “I... I'm sorry I left.”
        “Don't be,” Merilanth said. “There's enough road for both of us, and Father can marry a merchant himself if he feels the need so badly.”
        “How did he take your leaving?”
        “No worse than he took yours, I imagine,” Merilanth said, and her sister grunted.
        “Disowned, then,” she said.
        “Very disowned. But I'm happy. *We're* happy.”
        There was silence around the fire for a long moment, as Merilanth rocked her infant nephew and Ssilikesh coiled his tail around her ankle in unconscious affection, as Lerisell's husband held Lerisell close.
        “You know, we lost our companions and most of our baggage to a rukh a while ago,” the half-orc said at last, breaking the silence. “And with the baby now, adventuring is only more risky. We could use some more travelling partners.”
        Merilanth smiled.
        “I've always wanted to delve into ancient ruins,” she said.