Treeshade 2: Poor Ideas

I sipped gratefully at the cup of wine I had been handed.  “Thank you, Priestess,” I said.  I had to clear my throat first.  The dust of the road sat heavy.

She smiled warmly and sipped her own ceremonial drink.  “Of course, warrior,” she said.  Oh, but what a sight for sore eyes was she, the antithesis of the cold, ugly road.  Of course, that was the point.  The Master doesn’t endow His most holy servants with supernatural grace, charm, and beauty for our enjoyment or His, but so that they can best serve as hosts of succor and peace after our time in the Splinterwood.  Not that anybody’s complaining.

The wine we were drinking was weak stuff, but delicious.  It was more for ceremony than anything else.  The temple’s services are not cheap, and if all I had been looking for was a slaking of my thirst and lust, I could have had it ten times at the brothel next door, which the Temple also owns.

Still, a brothel can’t cure what ailed me.  I had been in the Splinterwood for too long.  I felt fine, but people generally do once the touch the Oil Court was on them for a while.  I had had the telltale headache when I was walking back from the forest, and by the time I was in the warded city, it was gone.  I needed the Master’s help, now.  The others understood.

“I suppose… oh, I don’t know,” I admitted.  “I feel… so dirty.  I don’t even know what happened.  I didn’t do anything unusual on this mission,” I added.  “I just went out into the Splinter, painted a few tainted trees, and came back in pain.”

The Priestess – Master, but she was so gorgeous – nodded solemnly.  “So it often is.”  She sipped another mouthful of wine, and I did the same.  Of course, as we were both practicing members of the Master’s clergy, it was technically unnecessary, but there was no real reason not to do it.  “Do you remember the words of the Lascien?”  The first of the multi-species adventuring bands to succeed in testing the anti-corruption magic had long ago written their findings on paper.

“Yes.”  I sighed.  “It’s why I came to you, Priestess.”

She smiled again, and I felt my heart’s weight lessen.  “I know, warrior, and I thank you for your discretion.”  She sipped her wine again and regarded me with a green-eyed stare over the rim of her brass cup.  “Have you undertaken my ritual before?”

“Er, if it’s the same one as the others’, then yes,” I said.

“It is.”

“May I ask you something?”  She nodded.  “Do you resent it?” I asked.

She considered that.  “Hmm.  At times, perhaps, in the instant, but never forever.  And it’s always worth it in the end.  Watching the creeping darkness fly away from my touch.  Few are fool enough to be ungrateful.”  Her smile turned to a frown.  “The ones that hurt are the ones who do not seek the touch of a woman of their own volition.  It’s no fault of theirs.  They are simply different, and draw no pleasure from my ministration.  Still, they don’t let that get in the way of their healing.”

“Of course, Priestess,” I said sympathetically.  She would have never been so open to somebody who is not a member of her clergy, of course, but I do serve the Master, as she does.  We don’t keep secrets.

She sat comfortably in her overstuffed chair, feet drawn up beside her legs, and leaned back against the cushion, wine cup balanced in her hands.  It wasn’t all the Master’s gifts that lent her effortless balance and grace.  Temple Priestesses are the best-trained of us all, in every respect.  I’d never want to fight one, and they can outsmart a wizard if they need to.  Still, being imbued with a God’s power has its perks.  I couldn’t honestly have told you her age.  She could have been my age, but she chose to look like a woman barely out of girlhood, in the balance of youth and experience of her early twenties.  Her eyes spoke truer, though.  They were a soft green color that matched perfectly the leaves of the Splinterwood trees that weren’t yet infected by the Dirteaters.  That was no coincidence.  That had been Otrenkonig’s favorite color once, and no Gods were closer friends than Otrenkonig and Master.

She smiled lightly over the rim of her cup.  “You’re staring.”

I chuckled in embarrassment.  I felt like a neophyte.  “I’m sorry.”  I fingered the fabric of my shredded overtunic.  I really needed a new one after those thorns had gotten me.  “I do wonder.  Do you think the Rebuilders had precedent for the sacred rituals?” I asked.  “Did they get the idea from somewhere else?”

“Oh, I’m quite certain of it,” the Priestess said at once.  “I understand it, too.  Worship, at its heart, is an intimate act, one of prostrating oneself before a high power and seeking something.  Power, pleasure, security, freedom, peace, conflict.”  She sipped her wine again, and so did I.  “What is more like worship than ritual?”

I stared into the red drink in my cup, feeling oddly self-conscious.  “Maybe that’s why sex is so large a part of it.”

“I should hope so.”  She smiled too, and quite deliberately draped her long brown hair over her shoulders so that it scattered over her chest, and the soft white half-gown she wore.  I watched, captivated.  It wasn’t all magic that caught my eye.  Of course, that was another thing she would never have done for a common petitioner.  I think she was teasing me.  I didn’t mind.  I was about to ask something very personal of her, and for her to share it with me.

“Don’t get me wrong,” she said.  “I love my holy office.  I bring joy and health to those who need it most dearly.  And of course, I can help, in my own small way, to eradicate the Oil.”

“True.”  We finished our wine in silence after that, and I sat across from her for a long moment, preparing myself.  Just because the ritual ends in sex doesn’t mean the first part doesn’t hurt a lot.

She helped, of course, bless her soul, and she stayed in her pose as I knelt before her.  I pressed my forehead to the ground before her, feeling the carpet brush my hair, and set the empty brass cup on the ground between us.  I heard the wood back of her chair squeak as she leaned forward and set her cup beside mine, symbolically offering her acceptance of my burden.  No real suspense there.  I hadn’t displeased her.  I sat back on my heels and opened my eyes, and she met them, making the appropriate hand gestures of offer and acceptance.

“By thine gift, by thine purity, and by thine holy flesh,” I intoned.

“By nature, by courage, and by choice,” she replied.  She grinned as my face sagged in relief once she spoke.  “By goodness,” she added in faux breathlessness.

I laughed and began to disrobe.  She lent me the privacy of unconcern as I made myself naked before her, although she made sure to tease me further with the occasional glance at my own eyes as I did so.  I faked a groan of frustration, and she laughed too.  As a Priestess, it’s quite her job to make sure that we who come to her for healing do so ready, but perhaps she went similarly above and beyond for her other petitioners.  In truth, I didn’t care.  It felt more real and comfortable for me that she would make such a gesture, and that is what counts.

When I was unclothed, she rose to her feet and held her hands together, palms up and flat, with her little fingers side by side.  I walked to her and placed my own hands on hers.

Her voice lowered to a whisper as she took my hands.  “By your nature, do you strive against the foe in the earth,” she said softly as she guided one of my hands to her shoulder clasp.  I undid it and let her gown fall open to her waist.  “By your courage do you shed your blood to stop the foe from reaching us where we stand.”  I unfastened the hooks on her shawl, and it fell away.  She pressed her bare upper body to mine and rested her forehead against mine.  “And by your choice do you do this, so that others need not,” she finished.  I slid my hands over her waist, undoing the tiny gold chains that held her clothing together, until they fell and pooled around her ankles.

I stepped back and held her hands again.  “By thine gift does the Master show his love for you,” I said through a dry mouth.  I ached for her.  She was perfect, just like the last three Priestesses I had needed the attentions of had been, in a way no other human could be.  “By thine purity does the mark of the sinful fade from me,” I said, looking down at the sick, black blotches on my otherwise normal brown skin.  By the Gods, that had spread fast.  I felt a bit queasy, but a faint squeeze from her hands brought my focus back.  “And by thine holy flesh is mine retaken from the grip of the soil-borne.”

She smiled.  “So I accept,” she said, and she led me by the hand to her bed.  She turned and playfully held my hands to her lips as she sank down into a seat on the bedside.  “So I pledge,” she added, quite unnecessarily, since we weren’t being wed, but I appreciated the gesture.  I was so erect I was actually becoming quite light-headed.  “Your flesh cries out for its cleansing,” she said.  She was tactful enough not to touch it, as she could see I had already cleaned the spots myself before coming to her.

“It does.  Thank you, Priestess,” I said.  “This is a sacrifice for you.”

She smiled gently, and I wanted to carry her in my sleep to her heaven where she belonged.  “Well, not always,” she said softly.  She tossed her hair back over her shoulders.  “Now, warrior, come and be with me.  Let us see how much intervention you actually need.”

I moved to sit beside her, and wrapped one arm around her shoulders.  She leaned into it, and fixed me with her magic vision.  No matter how many times I experience it, it always hurts, it hurts so much that even with all my time in the service, I couldn’t muffle a groan of agony.

Her soft hands on my thigh and hand kept me steady and focused as the scouring light of the Reconstructors began working the taint of the Oil from my inner flesh.  Her own touch could cure my skin unaided, but my internal organs and, possibly, my soul were beyond the healing power of a mere Priestess, no matter how Gifted.  I whimpered in pain as They reached within me and cast my taint away.

It took nearly an hour.  Her hands traveled over me with a clinician’s touch.  My body was frozen there, unmoving, locked in her magic, as she channeled the painful mercy of the Gods through her and me.  When it ended, the sensation simply faded.  She was experienced enough not to release me from my paralysis, however, which was for the best, as I would have collapsed.  She did so gently, instead, and eased me back down onto the bed, my feet still pressed to the floor.

I suppose, in the most raw and technical sense, the mere act of freeing us from an internal taint could be fulfilled without what we do next, but to free the internals without the act of intimate protection that her carnal ritual entails simply doesn’t last.  In time, the curse would melt from my skin back into my inner organs and require even more curing.  I don’t know if it was a design of the Oil Court to force us to have sex to free ourselves from their curse, or if it was simply an incidental factor, but if there’s one thing at which we humans excel, it’s taking something cold and invasive and turning it into something better.  I managed a smile as she loomed over me, between me and the lights, beautiful and perfect.  “Thank you,” I whispered.

She leaned down and kissed me, lingering there for long seconds.  I slowly raised my arms and braced my hands on her face, keeping her with me.  “That’s not… strictly orthodox,” I observed.  I could tease her, too.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she giggled.  She kissed me again and gently shoved me over to make room for her to lie beside me.  We entwined our bodies, cradling each other in our limbs.  I felt the sensation like ice as the Oil in my skin retreated from her relentless goodness.

“Oh… it hurts, but it’s working,” I relayed.  I clenched my teeth and forced my fists to unclench from the sheets.  “Oh, Master, it hurts.”

She carefully dislodged my grip from the sheets and wrapped my arms around her torso again, pressing our bare bodies together.  “Look into my eyes again,” she commanded.

“I don’t need… a second paralysis,” I grunted through gritted teeth.

“Not for my sake.”  I opened my eyes and met hers, and the pain lessened as I saw the intensity of her focus.  Her pretty smile was gone.  Now she was concerned, and helping me.  I immediately relented my foolish pride and let her heal me faster with her simple vision spell, feeling like an idiot.

“Sorry.  I forgot you could do that,” I muttered.

She rolled her eyes and pushed me onto my back, pulling her with me until she was riding me with her legs astride my thighs.  She sat up, letting my hands trail along her arms until I was holding her forearms, and she had mine.  She was silhouetted against the lights, and that couldn’t have been a coincidence.  “Are you prepared?” she asked.

Actually, my erection had flagged somewhat from the pain, but seeing her ready to mount me like that had brought it back to full strength.  “Yes.  Thank you,” I said.

She grinned confidently and realigned herself with me.  She crossed her arms under her breasts and rocked her hips up, aligning my penis with herself through sheer skill with touch to guide it.  I shivered in anticipation, and she grinned again.

“Look at you, warrior, I thought you’d said you’d done this before,” she said playfully.

“Which is why I know what I’m in for,” I countered.

She laughed, and began the ritual in earnest.  She whispered words in the language I had heard my guardian angels speak in my own visiting to the Gates, and slowly rocked her hips from side to side, slipping me in a bit further with each small movement.  I had been with women enough times to know that at least some of the pleasures I was expecting came from the hour of buildup first, sitting beside an avatar of female perfection and letting her touch me, and that her real skill was probably not far greater than a normal woman’s, but I couldn’t begin to care.  I forced myself to keep my eyes open and not let them sink shut in bliss as she began to slowly rock her hips up and down.  The cold receded from my flesh as her magic and the Master’s unconditional love burned it clean.

My breath had been heavy all along, so that was no different, but I felt a bead of sweat work its way down my cheek as she had her holy way with me.  I like to think my masculine pride kept me from being offended that the rapturous pleasure in her eyes came from channeling her own Guardian’s power, not my sexual skill, which was an easy call to make since I wasn’t even moving and didn’t know her name.

For a few solemn, powerfully carnal minutes, she prayed, working the immense magical energy needed to erase the taint of the Oil Court from me, channeling powers yet greater to gird me for another few months of expeditions.  My hands were shaking from forcing back the instinct to grab her by the hips and slam her down on me, to fuck her rough and passionate, but I had to have patience.  That would come, if she were in the mood, but I had heard the stories of what happened to those petitioners who pressed the matter when their hostesses had been uninterested in proceeding after the ritual had formally ended.  That, and I’m not entitled to enjoy myself at her expense, like a complete jackass would imagine themselves to be.

But oh, her touch, and her warmth, and her softness, and that welcoming, slick pressure that was driving me mad as it healed me…

I closed my eyes at last as I could bear no more, after several minutes of her slow gyrations.  “I… might be losing the battle,” I whispered.

She kept talking for a few seconds more, then I felt her hand tweak the back of one of mine.  “All done, warrior,” she said.  I opened my eyes and saw her sitting there still, atop me and full of me, and smiling from ear to ear.  She still glowed with the Master’s radiance.  “You are in better health than you have ever been.”

It was true.  The black marks on my skin were gone.  I felt new health and life breathe into my tired body.  “Oh… thank you, Priestess,” I sighed.

She playfully rocked her hips again.  Traditionally, of course, this concluded our interaction, and politeness dictated I depart to leave her to her post-interaction duties.  We had all heard stories of entitled fools remaining past their welcome and being pulverized by the Priestesses or Priests for their presumptuousness.  “Ah, it was my pleasure,” she said kindly.  She squeezed her knees on either side of my chest and pushed her breasts together with her arms.  “Mmm… it is a relief, is it not?”

“It is,” I confirmed, unsure of what precisely she was doing.  Were we not done?  “Thanks.”

She gently clenched on me, and I gasped.  “Were it only that there were a more noteworthy end to the protocol,” she mused, sweat beading on her forehead.  “Something easier to define than my Guardian’s voice responding no longer.”

“Er… if only,” I said.  This was an unexpected and somewhat unprofessional courtesy she was extending, but I was nowhere near mad enough to complain.  I opened my mouth to continue our banter, when I saw her raise a finger.

“Hush,” she managed.  She bounced again, twice more.  With a gasp I felt in my stomach, I suddenly came, utterly beyond control, again and again until I was shivering from my knees to my stomach.

She smiled with an enormous grin, slowing her rhythm to a halt and resting with my aching manhood securely within her.  Thank the Master this ritual prevents childbirth, or I dare say people would risk it less often.  Then, that’s the point, isn’t it?  Who wants to accidentally sire a child while saving their own soul from turning to dirt in their chest?

She nuzzled my cheek until I opened my eyes.  “Bliss is no mistake,” she said softly.  “Let the joy of our shared touch reward you, warrior, and turn your mind to our promised reunion.”

I sighed, and I felt the stress of the last two days melt away.  “Of course… holy one,” I murmured.  There is a reason we revere the Priests and Priestesses that has nothing to do with carnal skill or trustworthiness.  “May I linger a while?  I am… exhausted.”

“I should hope so,” she said again, with a haughty sniff we both knew to be a joke.  She gingerly withdrew me and we shifted to lie beside a man-shaped wet spot where she had cured me.

I wrapped an arm around her and rested my hand on her chest over her heart.  She rested her head on my shoulder and draped one leg over mine, watching in silence as I softened to disuse.  “Thank you, by the way,” she said conversationally.  I looked down at the crown of her head.  “I read your report.  Four acres.”

“It was nothing,” I said, trying to be modest.

“Shut up,” she chuckled.  “Four acres.  You could feed a village with that much land.”  She craned her head up and smiled, and not a mote of her radiant, magical beauty was lost behind the sweat and stray hairs of her exertion.  It was as if I was lying with one of the lesser angels.  I felt oddly small despite being two inches taller than her.  “Bless you too, warrior, for putting that much on the line and winning.”

I shrugged silently.  She grinned again and settled back down.  “Where to now?”

“Well, I was planning on visiting the Pleasant Surprise,” I said, naming the brothel the Temple owned, “but that seems less urgent now.”

She scoffed.  “You were planning on leaving my chambers with lust left in your loins, warrior?  You underestimated me.”

I laughed, and so did she.  “I admit, I forgot how… powerful the ritual can be,” I said.  “And, of course, nothing compels you to further seek my touch once it ends.”

“Fair.”  She rose up on her arm and looked down at me.  “Do you object to further lingering?” she asked.  “It is well past nightfall.  You are still not wholly recovered from the ritual, I see,” she said, gesturing at the lighter spots on my body where the Oil had been.

I winced.  “I would not trouble you?”

“Of course not.  I booked the room for the whole night, not knowing your taint was fairly minor.”  She set her head back down.  “Speak to me, lie with me further.  I would know of your adventure.”

“It was an odd one,” I admitted.  I took her in my arms and rolled to my side, gently holding her to me, and she rested her head beside mine on the nearest pillow.  I looked into her gorgeous eyes and felt at peace.  It felt nice to be simply telling stories.  “Well… it began with our sojourn to the edge of the farm Shields, and the roadway collapse past that…”

There we lay, cozy and chatting, as the darkness outside deepened to utter blackness save the glowing tin coins of the moons.  In time, natural side effects of relaxing with a beautiful woman in my arms set in, and vigor returned to my manhood.

She affected innocent surprise, purely for her own benefit.  “Oh, it seems the ritual bears repeating,” she remarked.

I laughed.  “Priestess, why do you abandon protocol so?” I asked.  “Are there not strict rules in place regarding further interaction between you and your petitioners?”

“Of course, and they are well-intentioned things, to shatter the mere chance of our patients and petitioners from forming undue bonds of affection or lust for us,” she replied.  She brushed dark hair from her eyes and snuggled more comfortably beside me, reaching out with her free hand to stroke me to full attention.  “But there are two key differences between you and the common petitioner, are there not?”

“Oh?”

“Yes.”  She settled her head on my shoulder and we watched her caress me.  “First, you are clergy of Him, as I am, and would never make a mistake such as that,” she said.

“Naturally,” I said.  Master, she was skilled.  “And… hnph… the second?”

“You cleared four acres of the Splinterwood,” she pointed out.  She looked up at me and pressed her lips to mine.  “I could call this reward, but you’ve had that already.  I could call it incentive, but you have that too.”  She gestured for me to rise, so I did, and she moved to balance on all fours, then cast me a cheeky grin over her shoulder.  “So I trust you to understand that I have needs as well, and I would rather you meet them than force me to go to the Surprise for a costlier intervention.”  She arced her back and shuffled her cute little butt up to press against me, rubbing her womanhood against my erection.  “Surely you understand a common petitioner would feel the need to boast after such a measure,” she said in a playful tone.

I took her hips, and I saw her bite her lip in anticipation.  “I do,” I said.  “The Surprise must see a roaring trade thanks to your Temple.”

“Why do you think we bought it?” she asked flatly, and I hesitated as I tried to figure out if she was joking.

She sighed.  “I jest.  We heal the illnesses the workers acquire.”

“Oh.”  I returned to the task at hand, and reached down beneath her legs to prepare her.  A slow caress told me she was well on her way with her slickness, and another earned me a soft moan.  A few more and she instinctively shifted her legs a bit closer together, and I felt a bead of her moisture slide down her thigh.

“Ah, warrior,” she murmured.  “You do understand.”

I ran my free hand down her flank, and she reached back and caught it with one of her own.  “I do,” I said softly.  I began to slowly rock the head of my erection against her soft lips, and she made a faint sound of desire and pleasure as it brushed against her most intimate spot.  I kept up my gradual rhythm for several minutes more, until I saw her go distinctly weak in the elbows.  I grabbed a pillow and laid it beneath her upper body, and she sank gratefully onto it.

“Thank you,” she said.  She smiled at me again.  “I do dislike sending petitioners off with their own satisfaction unreached, despite the need to prevent undue attachment,” she said.  “This may be the one context in which it is unfortunate for a man to have much carnal endurance.”

“And thus leaves your own arousal leashed,” I realized.  “I’m sorry.”

“It’s worth it, but I do trust you to keep this breach of protocol well out of the ears of those who might be compelled to act on it?” she asked.

I leaned forward and caressed her cheek.  “Always,” I said.

She pressed her hand to mine and trapped it against her cheek.  “Thank you.”  Her eyes flicked to my working her womanhood over, though she couldn’t see it through her own body.  “Now… please.  For both our sakes.”

I smiled confidently and slid back into her velvet-soft embrace.  I saw her eyes drift shut, and her stomach clench.  “Oh, warrior,” she whispered, her voice a blessing.  “Oh… warrior…”  Her hand tightened on mine.  “Ngh…”

I began to move, and she arced her back again.  Her breath was louder now, and I saw her fists bunch on the pillow beneath her.  Whatever divine magic empowers her during the ritual proper, it clearly fades when she is not enacting it, so her touch was ‘merely’ that of a trained Priestess, and thus mortal not divine.  That did not prevent her from feeling superior to any woman I had known before, and only my prior climax kept me from embarrassing myself in a few minutes.

There we moved, together in rhythm, pausing every couple minutes to catch our breath and realign.  When she had had enough from behind, she shifted on her pillow to lie on her side, upper leg raised on my shoulder, my arms clamped on her belly and the small of her back.  She, I discovered to my delight, enjoyed making eye contact with me as much as I liked looking into her god-touched eyes, and I felt my temperature rise from her attention.  Whatever thought process the Master underwent that ended with making his temple servants as attractive as possible, I blessed aloud, and she laughed.

“Thank you,” she said unsteadily.  I saw her stomach clench again, and her hand went to mine on her belly.  “Oh, warrior, please, keep going a bit longer,” she pled.  “I… I feel myself drawing near…”

I set myself to the task and put my thumb to tiny circles around her hood, and she whimpered.  “Warrior…”  Her head sagged back down onto the pillows, and I saw her nipples peak.  “Oh… oh!”  All at once, her orgasm arrived, and I felt her suddenly tighten and grow slicker on my manhood.  I did not interrupt my rhythm, and she suddenly cried out in release.  I felt a surge of relief – I had not embarrassed myself, despite her skill and flawless womanhood.  My own orgasm followed, finally unrestrained by my challenge to outlast her, and I turned one hand to clench her hand tight.  We shared a few long seconds of utter bliss together.  When she finally opened her eyes, she gasped as her whole body unclenched from the experience, and she met my own eyes.  She looked as dazed as I felt.

She licked her lips.  “Thank you, warrior…” she managed.  She gently pulled me free of her, releasing the wave of my seed from herself.  Heedless of mess, she rolled away from the dampness onto dry bed, and I carefully lay beside her on the last dry spot on the large ritual mattress.  She moved to straddle me and lay her long, shapely legs beside mine, resting her breasts on my chest and crossing her arms over my collarbone.

“Ah… that, that is indeed precisely what I needed,” she said dreamily.  She accepted my hands on her back and snuggled down on my warmth like a cat in a sunbeam.  “And you, my warrior?”

“I have never felt so relaxed,” I chuckled.  She met my eyes again, and the divine spark in them was as bright as ever.  Clearly, the Master was unperturbed by our unsanctioned coupling, so I chose to be as well.

She smiled happily and lay still, catching her breath.  When a few minutes of companionable quiet had passed, she slid off of me and cuddled up to my flank.  “My eyes grow heavy from a job well done,” she murmured.  “Would it trouble you, I wonder, if I pass out beside my conqueror?”

I laughed.  “I conquered nothing, Priestess.  You were so ready for me that I could have brought you to climax paying no attention at all,” I boasted.  It wasn’t true and she knew it, but it was the sort of joke she seemed to expect, and she laughed loud and carefree.

When our mirth stopped, she kissed my cheek and set her head down on the pillow beside mine.  “Perhaps in the morning, we can make use of the bathing room, but for now, I confess, hygiene shall have to come behind rest,” she admitted.  “I am weary.”

I turned on my flank to slide an arm over her body and cradle her chest against mine.  Now as I loomed over her, I was struck again by the cords of muscle under her soft skin, and the unmarred beauty of her breasts and arms as she turned to face me.  I leaned over to kiss her cheek again, sure to use the priestly style, since there was a risk I would grow too attached to her in the glow of our sex despite our training to avoid it.  “Of course,” I whispered.  “Master bless you, Priestess, and good night.”

She extinguished the candles with a snap of her fingers, and the room plunged into darkness.  All I could see was the faint light of the moons on her outline of feminine loveliness, and the green lights burning in her eyes.  “Good night, warrior,” she said warmly, and we both fell silent.


As my eyes opened in the plane of death and dreams, I saw Her stand before me as I always do.  Tonight, Her skin was the color of mine own light brown, Her hair was shock-white, and Her eyes were chips of sea blue.  I noted further that She was in full armor today, save for Her arms and upper torso plates, which hung in the air beside Her.  I went through the motions of our greeting in silence, taking a reverent knee to Her, and noted that Her usual smile of welcome had a sarcastic tilt, and a peak to Her eyebrow.

I coughed as I approached Her.  “Holy one,” I said.

“Hmm.”  She knelt and beckoned me again, and I relaxed as I felt the divine power of Her wings wash over me.  This time, She lingered in Her embrace.  “Thine lapse of protocol, Paladin, is duly noted,” She said, in a tone that was half sardonic, half amusement.

In any other tone, it would have turned my guts to ice, but She was clearly more entertained by my antics than She was irritated at the technical breach of procedure.  I bowed my head when She released me to lie in her arms more comfortably.  “I apologize, for however little that might be worth, your Holiness,” I said anyway.

I felt Her chuckle silently.  “Ah, but it is no thing’s harm, Paladin, and the infraction is on the Priestess anyway,” She noted.  “How rude would we be, were the frustrations of thine inescapable flesh a punitive effort by our Master?”  She flicked my ear.  “But perhaps, Paladin mine, ye might be a bit less hasty to abandon thine vouched oaths, regardless of their discomfort?” She scolded gently.  “We impose the restrictions on the expanded skills of the Priestesses for a reason, ye know.”

I closed my eyes from the stinging words of Her rebuke.  Her perfection made them feel like lashes, despite their clear intent to inform and not punish.  “Of course, my holy guardian,” I said quietly.  “I beg your pardon.”

The light over my head shifted as She smiled, and my sorrow washed away.  “Naturally, Paladin,” She said softly.  “Enjoy thine rest.  If thine carnal diversions had drawn His ire enough for me to relate it to thee on His behalf, I promise ye, ye would have been first to know.”  Warm wings shifted to hold me tighter, and comfort poured through my soul.

“Did I serve Him well in the Splinterwood?” I asked.

“Oh, you did,” She assured me.  She removed Her armored gloves and set Her hands on my cheeks where I rested my head on Her armored lap.  “Four acres, Paladin.  Four.  He honors thine work.”

I opened my eyes.  She was looking down Her nose at me, an encouraging smile on Her face.  “I would say thine good work would shield thyself from thine rebuke, but in truth, the Master sees little wrong in thine actions, save thine apparent lack of action of thine notice of the Priestess’s disregard for protocol,” She said.  “No, ye did His work and no mistake, and the Priestess has already been chastised by her own Guardian, who likewise feels no need to be harsh.  In truth, her argument for a momentary inobservance of protocol is not a wholly unreasonable one… but it still better to simply ask permission than plead forgiveness, despite the popular opinion,” She observed.  She ran Her thumb over my cheek.  “Still, did ye not emerge from her lapse under the impression that this be a… habitual disobedience on her part?”

“No!  No, my guardian, no,” I hastened to assure Her.

“Nor did I.”  She raised my hand to Her lips and kissed it in a gentle courtly gesture, and I felt, to my surprise, my body begin to wake.

“Oh?  Already?” I asked.

“The Priestess healed thine flesh of all its injury, did she not?  Among her other diversions,” my sacred one pointed out.  “In the waking world, ye have slept nine hours.”  She bade me rise.  She rested one hand on my shoulder and spoke Her blessing, and my magic returned to me replenished.  After one parting kiss, I vanished from Her sight.


The Priestess and I rolled over to look at each other as one.  “Oops,” she said sheepishly.

“Hmm.”  I rose from the bed and worked my neck.  “Oops indeed.”

“I appear to have let my lust get the better of me,” she observed.  She rose too, and followed me into the bathing room.  This wealthy temple had its own water heaters in the basement, and the water that poured from the tap when she turned it was clear and steamy-warm.

“So did I.  I’m sorry,” I said.  “I shouldn’t have.”

“No, this was completely my fault,” she sighed.  “You were ready to leave, and I bade you stay.”  She turned to me and half-smiled.  “My Guardian was… understanding, but such is her way.  I shall not do it again.  If I am to seek release from the pressures of the flesh, I am to do so in the proper context, not the arms of a colleague after hours.  At least not under such transparent auspices.”  She dipped her toe in the water and stepped in.  “A small price to pay for Her blessings.”

“My Guardian said all was forgiven, though,” I observed.  I sat at the far edge of the huge bathtub.  I understood this tub could be used for some of the more complex and invasive curative rituals, although I had blessedly never needed them.

“Oh, so did mine, but… you know.  Displeasing Them hurts.”  She sighed again.  “My Guardian said I should have simply invited you to join me in the Surprise, rather than continuing in the very bed where I work my magic.  Still.  I regret nothing.”

“Nor I.”  I joined her in the water and sat beside her as we cleaned.  “I’ll be smiling for hours,” I chuckled.

She grinned to herself.  “I, also.”

When we were done cleaning up, we rose and dried, then I donned the damaged remains of my armor.  “Suppose I should get this fixed,” I muttered.

“The armorer here can do it,” the Priestess pointed out.  When I reached for the door, I felt warm arms slide around my waist.  “Master bless you, warrior,” she murmured.  “Stay safe in the Splinterwood.”

I squeezed her hand.  “Thank you for my soul’s safety, Priestess,” I murmured back.  “Farewell.”


The priestess:

I awoke in the sheltered grove inside the walls of the heavens.  I sat up and stretched, refreshed and happy.  I might have been in for a scolding, but by the Master’s shadow, I felt alive.  I looked around and saw my Guardian sitting among the others, chatting away.  I walked up and halted a respectful distance away, waiting patiently.  He noticed me and shot me a warning look that drained some of the joy from my spirit.  I waited a few awkward minutes more before he rose and led me in stony silence to the darkest corner of the grove.  In the grove, silence is shadow, and the darker the place, the quieter it becomes.  He did not want to be overheard.

I followed in his wake like a penitent schoolchild with my head hung low as I sat before him, resting on my heels.

“My friend, you have been naughty, have you not?” he asked sternly.

I nodded.  “I suppose I have.”

“Do you know what you did?” he asked.

“I had sex with a coworker beyond the call of my responsibility to heal him as he paid me to do,” I admitted.

To my surprise, my guardian – he shall remain nameless to me, I know, as if I could ever fail to know him – rolled his eyes and sighed.  “Of course you think that to be your error,” he muttered.

I regarded him with cautious surprise.  “What?  I did something else wrong?”

He rubbed his temples.  “Dear heart, why did you do it?  Why did you lie with him?”

“Frustration,” I said, trying very hard to keep defensiveness from my tone.  “The ritual ended so quickly!  It left me on the edge of… satisfaction,” I said, my voice trailing off a bit.  It sounded so selfish when I said it aloud.  “I knew he would have left to slake his own needs at the Pleasant Surprise had I not allowed him to reach his finish, but I thought I would have before he did… I didn’t, and I was so aroused it hurt.”

“Indeed,” the guardian said matter-of-factly.  “And the portion of that which allows you justifiable bypass of your protocols is… which?  None.”

“I did not want him to have to visit the same place as me to meet his own needs, and mine remained unmet,” I mumbled, feeling more like a fool with each passing moment.  On the plus side, his frown was fading as I confessed.  “I… hmm.  I should have simply… oh, dear.”

He sighed.  “Lass, if you didn’t want to waste money when you had a willing petitioner in your arms, that is not so horribly out of line,” he said.  “But a colleague?  One who specifically asked if you would be troubled by it?  Did your excuses sound adequate to you in the moment, I wonder, because they clearly do not now.”

“Yes, sir,” I said softy.

“Four acres.  Fine work.  Was it worth it?”

“Well…” I blushed.  “Ssssort of.  He did… certainly complete his task.”

He peaked his eyebrows, and I looked down in shame.  “I have not yet shaken the burdens of my desires,” I finally admitted.

“Again, that is not your misdoing,” the guardian sighed.  “Very well, sweetheart, before this self-examination becomes too embarrassing, please set it aside and listen to me.”  He rose and bade me do the same, and I followed in silence.  “Dear friend, do you honestly imagine I care, or the Master cares, if you take a colleague in your arms?  The Splinterwood is a merciless and violent place, and we do not think less of those who seek comfort from each other in the face of its perils.”

I listened in silence as he continued past the obviously rhetorical question.  “No, Priestess, we don’t care.  Not in principle.  But what you did specifically was wrong, it was a mistake.”  He looked at me over his shoulder as we slowly walked even farther from the group.  That boded ill.  “Dreaming spirit, when you stalled the completion of the ritual for a few moments to enjoy a bit of mutual comfort, I do not care in the slightest.  But when you heard him ask if you were doing the right thing, you had to come up with excuses why it was alright.  Really.  ‘A Paladin would never give in to his urges?  You did a really good job at work?’”

I felt shame warm my cheeks.  “Learn, young friend, that the culprit here was your own frustration.  To be left teetering on the brink of satisfaction is painfully uncomfortable, I know,” he said drily, “but if that were the case, simply tell him so at the time and deal with it.  If you had just taken the man into the Surprise, or even a guest bedroom of the Temple and done your deed, all would have gone unremarked upon.  But no, you had to fabricate a justification you did not need, simply because it did not occur to you to be bothered to pull on a robe and invite him elsewhere.  In your own ritual bed, no less.”

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled.  I felt like a complete idiot.

He continued.  “To be left unsatisfied or uncomfortable by the inherently sexual nature of your medical power is an unfortunate state, to be sure.  Know that the Master would change it in an instant if He had the means.”  He looked back at me.  “I mean it.  You suffer it less than most, but I know there are those of your elite fraternity that see it chilling, even foul, that sex is needed to free the corrupted from the Oil.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Thus are you rewarded with immense magical power, the gift of nightly visits to paradise, and a hundred other boons besides,” he said.  “To bear the infrequent frustrations of carnal desire or to be repulsed by those with whom your services command you to lie is a bad thing, to be sure, but it is compensated handsomely.”

I hung my head again.  “And, of course, nothing stops you from visiting your personal attention upon him in any other context,” he pointed out.  “Your promises to not form bonds of affection with a client end with the visit to him.  Do you even know his name?”

“No,” I admitted.

“Do you wish to conclude your contracted service with the Master?”

I looked at him, scandalized.

“Good.  Now, my friend, know that you are forgiven, and so is he, from what I am told,” my guardian said.  “Now that you know the real reason you erred.”

I unclenched my jaw.  “Yes, Guardian.”

He turned and waited for me to catch up with me.  When I did, he spread his arms and I embraced him, and I felt soft wings materialize from nothing to hold me close.  “I love you, Priestess, and I bear you no grudge.  Your misconduct was the result of an errant moment of weakness, not malice or indifference,” he said, which was perhaps somewhat generous given that I had had time to try to justify it to myself and the Paladin.  Still, he was clearly being merciful.  “No punishment shall be levelled upon him or you.  If you wish to lie with a man, do so.  Just not when you specifically know you shouldn’t.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” I murmured into his shoulder.

“Hush.  All is undone.”  He pulled back and held my hands between us.  “Are we mended, or is the acrimony between us now forever insurmountable?” he asked drily.

I had gotten off light, and we both knew it, and I loved him like a father.  A dry joke was still a recognizable one.  I laughed.  He smiled and kissed my cheek.  “Now, little one, sit with me, and speak of the times in the great Cities,” he said.  I sat beside him, and we spoke for what felt like days.


When I awoke, I met the paladin’s eyes and managed a bashful shrug.  “Oops.”