Chapter 51 – Teller of Fate

Teller of Fate

Sixth Movement: The Fate of Stars

Chapter Fifty-One

* * *

The entire party fit comfortably in Dævara’s apartments. She insisted on reserving her bedroom for her and Brad but made provision for all to have comfortable sleeping accommodations by having the staff bring feather mattresses, pillows, and comforters. A large quantity of food and drink was also laid on.

To her surprise, her suite still had running water. The Blue Griffin, she learned from a maid, had been recycling its own water for generations. They had almost perfect reclamation, in fact. That and a huge cistern for emergencies like the current overcrowding, meant that the Griffin wouldn’t have water issues no matter how long this crisis took to resolve.

The inn was as far over capacity as it could get and still function, so Gregarrt didn’t think they would be asked to provide more space for refugees.

The Miu and Dæv laid John on one of the mattresses close to the fireplace, which the elf raised until the suite was quite warm. Everyone began to shed outer garments to get more comfortable. A rota for the showers was arranged.

Elian spent some time with John, afterward announcing that, apart from some minor injuries to his hands—which he had healed—there was no damage, and that food and rest was all he would need.

It was then that the Miu piped up and asked that Jane be helped. After stripping to the waist and removing the makeshift tensor bandage, the dwarf spent a few minutes examining the bruise which now covered most of the woman’s flank. He produced a salve that caused the woman to wince as he applied it and then to relax and even smile. After that, Elian place both hands gently where the damaged ribs were and muttered a few phrases. The woman gasped loudly and fainted.

To the scolding Miu, Elian responded calmly that the ribs were now healed but that the spell drew most of its energy from Jane, and so caused unconsciousness. He advised letting her sleep for as long as she wanted to and to get her to eat as much as she could when she woke.

The dwarf then gripped the cat-woman’s injured hand and spoke another phrase, leaving her marvelling at five fully grown claws where two had been so painfully snapped off. The bruise on her shin was gone as well. With that, he went to take his turn in the shower, acknowledging her thanks with a wink.

The rest settled in with food, drink, and sleep.

* * *

After the food and bedding arrived and was laid out, Dævara used that talent Brad couldn’t help but think of as elf magick to put everyone at their ease. She seemed her usual outgoing, friendly self, helping the others get settled for the night.

She wasn’t herself, though; that much Bradwold could tell. He had watched her surrender her Syrat—to her father! Even now, he had trouble crediting it. She’d told him that a Teller couldn’t be parted from the Syrat against their will. Nothing had she mentioned about willful surrender. Brad was worried about what it would do to her. Was Dæv still a Teller, even? Would this kill her?

The two of them stayed to eat and chat a bit. Brad watched Elian check on John Airkhart and pronounce him healthy, then heal Jane Airkhart, sending her into a deep sleep.

Dævara sat with him, leg pressed against his, never more than glancing at him. All were signs of her distress. After eating less than her wont and refusing any drink stronger than water, she reached out and gripped his left pinkie finger and squeezed it briefly: she needed him now.

Bradwold rose, stretched, and announced that he was going down for the night. He theatrically held a hand out for his elven love.

She looked up, feigning surprise that he expected her to leave the gathering so soon but made no protest. She picked up the almost forgotten book she’d traded her life’s purpose for.

Taking his hand, she let him help her to her feet. Grinning her wicked grin, she bade the others good night, turning away with him to a chorus of “good nights” and friendly innuendo.

Her grip on Brad’s hand was tight, her hand clammy, as she let him lead her up the stairs.

As soon as they were alone, she dropped his hand, the book, and the pretense, moving into his arms. “I feel cold, and I ache all over, I do.” Even muffled against his chest her voice sounded plaintive. Sorrow was an emotion Brad had never seen her indulge in for more than a few seconds before.

Brad had questions; many, many questions. They were subsumed in his sudden desire to make her gay again.

Without speaking, he led her to her private bath. They headed straight for the shower, ignoring the large copper bathtub standing nearby.

Listlessly, Dæv began to disrobe. ‘Time to begin the Brightening of Dævara,’ Brad thought.

Brad stayed her hands before they could undo a second buckle of her leather cuirass. Commanding her to stand still and raise her left arm, he undid the remaining steel buckles down the side. Once done, he pulled it off and began undoing the straps of her gambeson, starting at the top. After each one, he paused and kissed her skin as far down as he could. He felt her shiver at each touch of his lips; heard her breath catch.

After the last strap came apart, Brad reached up, grabbed the collar of the padded shirt, and pulled down, rising to his knees as he did so. The jacket came away, leaving Dævara’s trunk exposed.

Bradwold gripped her waist tenderly, yet firmly and encircled one blue tinted areola with his lips, looking up at her as he did. He saw life in those scarlet irises and an upward curve to those Cupid’s bow lips as she stared back. Her arms came up and encircled his head. He flicked her nipple with his tongue and quickly broke contact. He blew a cool stream of air over it and watched as it rose and its skirt wrinkled and shrank. Dæv exhaled audibly.

Descending again, Brad explored the stiff roughness of the new terrain with his tongue. He sucked at her nipple and bit just a little harder than he usually did. She gasped and pressed his face against her breast, leaning into his mouth. He heard a shuddering in-breath between clenched teeth.

Brad worked both breasts for a while before Dæv grabbed his hair and yanked his head to hers. Her mouth smothered his, breath blown from her small nose tickled his cheek.

Without breaking contact, Brad wrapped an arm around the elf’s waist and another under her ass and lifted her as he stood erect from a crouch that was rapidly becoming painful. She seemed to weigh nothing as he pulled her pelvis against his belly. She wrapped her legs tightly around him.

Dæv swayed, leaning her chest just far enough away that the ends of her nipples stuttered back and forth across the cool steel of his breastplate. She groaned as her tongue swept across his lower lip in syncopation. Brad bit her tongue. She growled; he let go.

She plunged her tongue into his mouth, seeking his. Tickling stopped as she mashed her breasts against him.

Dævara’s hands had been tangled in Brad’s hair. She let go abruptly, just as her legs dropped from around his waist. Her kissing became a bit distracted as things got busy around waist level. She grunted into his mouth as she tried to push her leather leggings down; she couldn’t bend, though. Another growl: this one said, ‘You better do somethin’ about this soon, I think!’

Brad held her around her waist one handed, reached between their bodies, grabbed the front of her leggings, noting the laces were loosened, and pushed. He managed to get them down past her thighs; now her boots were in the way. No matter.

Brad supplemented his support around her waist with one hand between her legs. She gripped him around his neck and shoulders.

Dæv’s pussy was wet. As he took some of her weight on his palm, she began to grind against his callouses. Her tongue echoed the movement of her hips, again in opposite directions. The whole of her vulva was sopping with her arousal.

Moisture had slicked Brad’s middle finger, so he began exploring the tiny rosebud of her anus, making little circles around its edge then pressing gently in the middle. She relaxed her outer sphincter, allowing him ingress. The inner, responding on its own to the insistence of his probe, eased open. Bradwold buried his finger to the second knuckle. He began wiggling and sliding the digit in and out.

Dæv broke the kiss. Her breathing, which had been long and deep, was becoming shorter pants. Her clit was hard against the ham of his thumb as Dævara was jerking her hips back and forth quickly. She hugged him tight.

Bradwold simply held on to her, listening to the tiny squeaks among the hoarse breaths in his ear. His cock was painfully erect. He waited breathlessly for the crescendo hoping he didn’t splooge in his pants—it had happened before.

Feeling the weight of her pressed against him, the smell of her, the memory of her taste as she wriggled and shuddered in his arms, the sound of her panting in his ear—all of it was delicious.

Brad’s hand was soaked; he could feel her juices dripping off his palm, thumb, and pinky. Dæv’s movements became more frenetic. She began holding her breath for short periods, letting it out each time with a soprano grunt and gasping in a new lungful.

Finally, a longer pause. The elf’s pelvis ground down on the heel of his hand twitching back and forth ever faster.

Her cry started out low and guttural, then climbed in tone until it was a squeal. It stopped and stuttered, three, four, five times; each time, her anus clenched his finger tightly. He lost count of her spasms.

Just as it stopped, Dævara tightened grip on his shoulders and jerked her cunt up off Brad’s hand, gasping as she did. His finger slipped out of her.

Brad moved his arm around and created a seat for her.

She rested her weight on his forearms and went completely limp against him.

“Is tú mo ghrá, a chuisle mo chroí^[1],” she panted softly into his ear. “Thank you, lover mine. Oh, thank you!” Her breathing slowly returned to normal.

* * *

Holding Dævara snugly, her Pretty Man moved over to a bench just outside the shower entrance and set her down gently, pulling her padded shirt off the ground to provide at least a semblance of a cushion. The dreadful cold ache that had overtaken her on their trip back to the surface was still there, but it had faded somewhat and the warmth and sizzle of her flesh and nerves overlay it and muffled its effect. She sat limply, a sleepy smile on her face, as he removed her boots and her leggings.

Brad sat next to her and began disrobing himself. She became livelier as she watched him. One hand supported her head, canted to one side. She put her outer foot on the bench as her free hand descended to her pussy and began to stroke the dark blue sheath protecting her clitoris idly. It began to tingle again.

Brad saw her and smiled that gorgeous smile of his.

She’d often managed an orgasm while masturbating just fantasizing that smile. She could feel her own smile tighten all the skin of her face. Her index finger moved to the head of her clit and began circular motions sending little shockwaves of pleasure through her groin.

Having sat to remove his boots, her lover was pulling his shirt over his head. The bulge in his trousers was driving her wild. His penis always looked monstrous under the leather.

During that moment when he couldn’t see her, Dæv reached with her free hand and began stroking the length of him through his leggings.

Brad was grinning when his head, hair tousled, emerged from the bottom of his shirt. His eyes flickered from her face to the space between his knees.

Obeying the unspoken command, Dævara went to Bradwold knelt between his knees on the shirt he had just discarded. She stroked his thighs through the leather of his leggings, looking up at him.

His grin was gone. In its place was an intent expression that she’d come to accept as kind of worship.

Dæv put on a pouty face that she knew his loved, biting her lower lip, then leaned in to kiss his phallus through the leather, licking the length of him up and down. She pressed harder to make sure he felt it, torturing him this way for several minutes until he began unlacing the front of the leggings himself. She smacked his hand away with a mock ‘you’re a naughty boy’ expression and finished the job herself.

Brad had never gone in for plate leggings as he didn’t find them practical in his work. In his turgid state his leather one’s were too tight to work around. Once the laces were all undone, Dævara reached in and tried to tug his prick out. She managed to get the last two inches of it visible.

Dæv gave the cord of nerves below the head a sloppy wet kiss and a slow lick, causing Brad to gasp.

He pulled her away from his crotch by her still bound queue, pushing his pants down and off by grabbing first one then the other cuff and yanking.

Brad tossed it over her head and, sitting again, pulled her back to his crotch roughly.

Dæv found her mouth against the join of his penis and scrotum. She open-mouthed kissed and licked it, continuing around the base of his dick until she got to the crease between his genitals and his right thigh.

She began long slow strokes on his cock as she kissed and licked him there. The smell and taste of him made her dizzy, making her forget her chills.

Dæv had only been at it a few seconds when he stopped her, by pulling her away again. She looked up; eyebrows raised.

He was panting and sweating, giving her that worshipping look.

“So close already, my love?” Dæv teased.

He nodded.

“Come, then.” She stood and took his hand, leading him back into the shower.

The shower stall, though smaller than the grand one on the main floor, could still have comfortably fit four. It had a mere eight nozzles at various heights. Before turning on the water, she tied the lower end of the leather sheath binding her hair to the steel net to keep it out of the way as her hair didn’t need washing again.

Soon the hot, steaming water was jetting from the nozzles. Brad stood with his back to two nozzles arranged vertically as Dævara knelt before him on a thick mat, raising her head to just the right height. She continued what she’d begun.

Never breaking eye contact, she kissed the bulbous head of his prick. She licked it all around it while stroking his shaft with one hand and gently squeezing and pulling on his balls with the other.

Brad’s panting resumed. He stood, hands on hips, giving her that worshipping stare.

As she enveloped the head of his cock with her mouth, Brad thrust his hips forward until his dick hit the back of her throat. She grabbed his hips and pulled him the rest of the way. Using the muscles in her throat to work his head and upper shaft, Dæv also made sure to let out a gagging and gurgling noise as it bulled past her epiglottis, because it aroused him so.

Brad grunted his pleasure as he held her head against his abdomen, her nose pressed up against him and his head thrown back.

Dæv pumped his cock by swallowing through the thick bulge of his member, audibly gagging every stroke. She used his scrotum as a handle to push him away when she needed air. During the pauses, she short stroked the upper third of his cock, panting. Locking eyes with him, she let saliva drip out of her open mouth.

All the while, the elf was working her own cunt, plunging three fingers in and out of her passage and punishing her clit with the heel of that hand by slamming it every stroke.

After her second pause for air, Dævara inserted her free index finger in his rectum, massaging his prostate as she took him all the way down at third time.

A final half dozen more throat pumps proved to be the game winner.

Bradwold roared. Grabbing her queue and pulling the leather sheath most of the way off, he yanked her off his cock.

He pumped his meat with a fist, panting.

The elf whore never broke eye contact as she continued to squeeze tickle his prostate, her own second orgasm held in abeyance, awaiting his.

Bradwold’s face was red and wet, cords on his neck standing out.

She allowed her own release in perfected sync with his. A pleasure so intense it almost seemed pain reduced her awareness of her lover’s pleasure. Brad’s orgasm came in a series of grunts accompanying rapid spurts of thick ropy spend that splattered against her face, forehead to chin. She sang out in perfect rhythm, orgasm surged along her nerves. Three, four, five, shots of cum, each with its matching cry of bliss, covered her narrow face side to side as well. The last few spurts had less velocity.

Dævara’s flushed face and panting mouth became the sanctified altar, accepting the dripping semen of her god on nose and cheeks.

The roots of her hair hurt where he had pulled them in the fury of his orgasm, but her own pleasure near blotted out the sensation.

He let go and stood swaying, looking down at her.

She was a sloppy mess she knew. Besides what felt like a pint of cum on her face, now dripping onto her breasts and belly, her hair had to be a complete haystack. She smiled a secret smile and licked his salty juice from her lips. Reaching up the hand that fairly dripped with her own juices, she grasped his cock and squeezed out the last drop onto her waiting tongue.

“You’re so beautiful,” he said.

Dævara was a whore and proud of it, but never prouder than when she his whore for his pleasure and for hers.

Her cold ache had almost vanished as their joint sacrifice fed the soul of her.

* * *

Brad had managed to get quite a bit of his seed in Dæv’s hair, so it was only fair that he wash it for her.

She stood with her back to him as he massaged the sweet-smelling lotion into her head and down her long tresses to the ends.

She moaned as he worked his fingers along her scalp. “That feels wonderful, my Pretty Man.” She reached around and found his cock. She did nothing but hold its semi-flaccid length as he continued gently scrubbing her hair, her gesture sensual and affectionate.

Once done and rinsed, she turned to face him, held her arms up and looked expectantly at him. Obviously, he wasn’t done yet.

Another lotion, this one more tart than sweet smelling, made a frothy foam, with a very fine grittiness underlying it.

With a closed eyed, dreamy expression that Bradwold must be enjoying, Dæv felt him swirl and stroked the lather over her breasts and upper chest, then tummy. Up again to run it along her arms and hands, stoking each finger to its tip.

Then it was, “turn around, love,” and time for the shoulders and back, then down to her rump. “Please stand with your legs apart,” and then her crevasse, tiny butthole, and juicy slit with its button of pleasure.

He stood behind her and reached around, bending over her shorter form, to rub her lower stomach and down further over her furry mound to scrub the hairs clean, pressing against her back as he did so.

Dæv pressed back until the hollow of her back met his stomach. The soapy lotion slicked the join uniting them. As Brad slowly worked Dæv’s vulva, she wriggled against him; the motion felt wonderful and was intensely arousing. His penis was soon nudging her butt-crack rather insistently.

“Let’s get to bed, love,” Dæv whispered in his ear.

They finished scrubbing, rinsing, and drying and moved to the bedroom.

Dævara rubbed her biceps with her hands. She was shivering.

“Still?” Brad asked.

She nodded. “It’s much better than it was, though.”

“I know what’ll cure you,” Brad said. He put his arm around her waist and squeezed. “Lie down on the bed, face down.”

She looked up at him and smiled, her eyes lighting up. “Could you use the Abramelin oil?”

“My very thought.”

She eagerly climbed on the bed and lay atop the comforter, pulling her hair up over her head and out of the way.

Brad nudged the room temperature up and adjusted the glass so that the only the dimmest light filtered through. Faint images of spheres like crescent moons, drifted overhead.

A bedside drawer held a crystal flask of golden oil. He took it out and grabbed a deep clay bowl. Pouring a generous measure into the latter, Bradwold replaced the wide stopper.

Turning to the bed, he grabbed a couple of pillows, lifted Dæv by her middle and placed them both under her hips. He then moved her feet about two feet apart. He placed the bowl between her knees. After a moment’s thought, he took a large pillow book and put it under the bowl.

Brad placed a hand on Dæv’s upper thigh as he swirled the oil with the fingers of his other hand, warming it. A perfume of cinnamon and calamus with just a hint of bitterness, a resin called myrrh she’d once told, him began to fill the air.

Dæv breathed in deeply and sighed: a happy little sound.

Once warm, Brad gathered a generous amount on his fingers and drizzled it over Dævara’s buttocks. Working his hands and fingers firmly, he spread the oil over both globes of fat padded muscle.

Moans and sighs of pleasure came from his love as he continued to anoint her body with holy oil and work her flesh with tender hands. First down her legs, left then right, spending extra time on each foot—heel, sole, instep, ball, and each small, pretty toe.

Back up and over her bum again, Bradwold skipped her genitals though he did tease her anus a little. He worked his fingers and palms flat along either side of her spine, then out along her ribs to her flanks.

He went up to her neck and then on to her arms; again, left then right, shoulder to hands; taking his time over palm and fingers.

Finally, Brad worked his way slowly down her back again. He climbed onto the bed and knelt just to the left of her. Gathering more oil on his fingers, he again sprinkled her ass and rubbed her cheeks until they glowed in the low light.

With each pass, Bradwold moved closer to the cleft of her cheeks.

The tone of Dæv’s moans began to change, becoming insistent. She began raising her hips every time his hands approached her bum cleavage, hoping to force his fingers to her holes.

He smiled and moved with her; denying her the sensation she craved.

Bradwold let this go on for as long as he thought she could stand it. On the last pass, he slid his left hand up to her lower back. He let the fingers of his right move straight along the cleft firmly over her anus and slid a finger along each side of her inner labia, pinching just a little as he went. Brad ended by stroking the hidden shaft of her clitoris.

Back and forth along her slit we went, rubbing her lower back with his other hand.

After a few more strokes Brad slid his middle finger between her lips and stroked the flesh above her vaginal opening. He moved back and forth over it for a few stokes then quickly slid his finger in, curling it up and pressing his knuckle hard against the firm spongy tissue just behind the pelvic bone.

Dæv gasped.

Brad began working her clit with his pinky finger, inserting a second then a third finger into her. He fucked her pussy with half his hand, smallest finger colliding with her clit with every stroke.

The elf was halfway to another orgasm when she lay down. Brad counted seven full strokes before she shouted and bucked her hips against his fist over and over. Her rhythm slowed and she stopped altogether, then she lay still and panted, shivering for a quite different reason than chills.

Keeping away from her clitoris for a moment, Brad withdrew his hand. He loaded up more oil and inserted two fingers curled down and pressed back into the spongy erogenous tissue inside.

He moved his left hand under her, pushing her up with his palm on her furry carpet and made come hither motions the two buried fingers.

Dæv began gasping and moaning almost immediately. Another orgasm followed the first within seconds. Then another. And another.

Brad lost count after ten.

Dæv stopped him by pulling herself forward.

Without breaking contact, Brad climbed over her. His legs just inside hers, he settled his weight on her ass and slid his cock balls deep in her sopping pussy.

Dævara let out guttural a sigh and gave his dick a rolling squeeze with her prehensile vaginal muscles. “Welcome home, my Lord.” Her voice was husky.

As Brad lay on her, resting his weight on his elbows. His head was level with hers. She turned eyes glassy with lust to him and kissed his lips.

Brad began the long strokes and in surprisingly little time shot his load. It was an intense orgasm that lasted a long time and left him only semi-conscious.

* * *

Dæv woke from a doze to realize she could barely breathe. “You’re heavy, y’are. Get off.”

Bradwold started and quickly slid off her, rolling onto his back.

Dæv continued to lie as she had, head turned away, breathing deeply.

“Well?” Brad said.

“Well, what?”

“Don’t you want your front massaged?”

“Yes, I do.” She tried to roll over onto her back, finding her lover in the way. He solved the problem by picking her up and laying her face down on this chest, quite oily from what had stuck to him. He proceeded to grip her by the waist and slide her up and down and side to side for a while. She squealed a protest all this at first, but by the time Brad had stopped she was helpless with laughter.

“There, all done.” She lay against him, still laughing for a moment. She stopped and tangled her legs with his, squeezing them for a moment.

Brad asked, “How are you feeling, love?”

She told the simple truth. “Grand.” While she was at it, “I love you Bradwold, my Pretty Man. No one has ever made me feel the way you do. Promise you’ll stay with me forever.” She blurted that last without giving herself time to think about it. She’d been on the verge of saying that for years and never let herself, knowing what the inevitable thought of her lover would be.

“I’ll stay as long as you’ll have me, but I’ll be gone long before you.” She heard the stress in his voice on the last three words.

“That scares you, does it?”

“I…I don’t…” He stopped for a moment and then started again. “The thought of you mourning me when I die is what scares me.” He stroked her back as they spoke.

Dæv gently kneaded his shoulders.

“I’ll be thousands of years in my grave before you get your first grey hair.”

She spoke again, her breath causing several hairs on his chest to quiver. It must have been ticklish for him. “It doesn’t have to be that way.” Dæv waited for him to protest. She did feel him tense up, but only for a moment.

He waited a long time to respond. Finally, “How?”

Dævara’s heart jumped, something he must have felt. “I have the Book, Dear Heart. The Incunabulum can change anything, it can.”

“You bargained away your Syrat for that Book!” By his tone Brad was upset, though there was no feel of it in his body.

“Only for the loan of the Syrat, lover mine. I’ll have it back soon.”

“If we get through what’s coming alive, let’s talk more about this. I want to think about it.” Brad had never been a fool, Dæv reflected. He knew how long the odds they faced were.

“Of course, my Pretty Man; of course.” With that, they settled and were both soon asleep in each other’s arms.

---

[1] “I love you, pulse of my heart.”

— Gideon Jagged
Innsmouth, August 2026

© Gideon Jagged
All Rights Reserved