Betrayal and Seduction
Betrayal & Seduction
PB 211
I am Kriah Ki'Jaret, daughter of a herdsman, blessed to the divine rites of Aria by a country priest in his rude hut huddled against the mountains of Aletheiu. I have been known as the Wanderer and as the Keeper of Chronicles, as the Warder of Papyrus, and now oft called the Kefetiuan. But I'm not truly from Kefetiu, nor from Shrilk, nor Argalia. I am from no land, no sphere and no tribe. I am the daughter of the winds, a sailor of the seas of civilizations as I ride from crest to trough, forever plunging and reveling amidst the tumult. I explain this for I fear these pages may never join the remainder of my history of Shrilk, duly filed in the depths of the great library. This memoir details but a single day missing from those volumes, some two hundred years past, when courses were set and safe harbor left forever astern. Let the one who reads these words wonder where the story truly begins, and if it has truly ended.
This chapter begins four years after I traveled to that barbarian land known as Shrilk to live amongst the regal beasts of feather, hooked beak and talon. The gryphons. These were the earliest of my travels and adventures beyond Kefetiu. I left behind the cool mountain pastures of my birth, forsook the companionship of fellow unicorns at the University for destiny far greater than scratching out dry theses concerning histories recorded in eons past. For I had a power you see, an inner sense for turning points. I could feel the moment when a barest nudge can change the course of lives forever. My peers wrote about history. I knew even then that I had the talent to create it.
PB 18, 22nd day of the Season of Summer
The waning years of the Republic
I awoke in the opulence of Orlandu's tower on a simple cot nestled amongst the great arcades that spanned the circumference of this uppermost rotunda. Resting there I beheld the first rays of the sun climb over the brooding mountain peaks to the east. In dawn's kiss they seemed to gleam violet, yielding only at the defeat of shadow to white lace and ferrous reds below.
The glazed dome above grew luminous through its colored panes, the facets of the tesserae scattering bright hues through the chamber. When I had first gazed upwards years before, standing not far from where I lay, my fascination was captured by the complex shapes so depicted in the stained glass. Featured at its center against a backdrop of open plains a dark feathered gryphon drake coupled a golden lover in mid flight, their wings suspended in synchronous downward draft, his mighty talons clasped to her chest and drawing her upwards against him. It is one of the most singular works I encountered during my travels in that harsh and primitive place and if there is one wound I carry forward to this day it is the necessary destruction of this sanctuary and all the beauties within.
Despite the majesty of my circumstances, on this morn my interest was far more captivated by the paragons of the splendid art above. Curled beneath the dome in a shallow depression carved of marble, lush with riches of down, my lord lay at rest with his mistress. I had watched them in coitus the evening before. This began out the very window beside me, as they chased one another between the soaring towers of the city of Raenlocke. Their hunting screams echoed from the stone of this sculpted city of towers, locked in their courtship dance. At last they tumbled onto the landing ledge, carried through to their cushioned reprieve in the center of the tower.
They surely knew of my presence, but remained ambivalent to the quiet scrape of my sketching quill. I will not say my heart didn't flutter, when I saw Orlandu arch above his lover, that I did not feel a needy ache at the moment he sheathed himself within her... that my heart did not for a moment sing a harmony to Sharrah's cry when her body shifted upwards in acceptance of him.
The diagrams are contained in volume three of my works on Shrilk.
There was a radiance about the gryphoness Sharrah, a greatness of spirit that defied the slender, narrow winged frame that doomed her in the waning days of the Republic to lesser status. She was considered a beauty, surely, among her people, but this is not what distinguished her in my perception. I had first seen the familiar gleam of hunger in her eyes two years before; that need for a destiny beyond the imaginations of the simple. I recognized it immediately for I knew that same spark each time I chanced upon my own pale reflection.
We first came on one another by a chance passing in a city park. Had I been but a moment earlier, I would never have known she was the one. On such a small events hinge the fate of empires.
As to how I came to serve Orlandu, it is well known that this immodest drake loathed the routine labors of bureaucracy. This fact was easily discovered by me before I first approached him to apply for the position of secretary. Surely he thought he had the better of the bargain; I would chronicle his life and the flow of power in the Republic, remaining always at his side, and in return I would serve as faithful secretary. So easily does one come to live in the bedroom of an Inner Council member in a barbarian land. Trust developed with time, for I am nothing if not in my element amidst stacks of papyrus and freeing him of these tasks so simple to my hand and so torturous to his own left him at liberty to pursue his lusts of passion, which were frequent and boisterous. But this dark winged drake, my chosen master, had a far greater destiny to fulfill than a philanderer of deft skill, though he did not yet know it.
The amorous pairing stirs, restless with the rising sun. There is no description for the soft croons and chiurrups of gryphons in love; their quiet affections would melt the deepest glaciers were they held but near enough. They touch one another with their beaks; gliding through fur and feathers, gripping with a firmness of claw that would rend another creature's flesh. Sharrah sees me watching, and calls out in laughter a good morning, her voice peaking suddenly as Orlandu rolls her to her back and his tongue caresses between her thighs. I hear her moan and giggle.
I knew the language of gryphons well even then, but still I listened with interest to the promises given one another in rut, the threats and wanton cravings of two who knew one another's hearts all too well. 'Tis a strange thing that so few creatures I have chronicled in the years since have known the art of coupling as do gryphons. Such are their varied ways and skills in courtship that one could easily write volumes about them and still scarcely tire the material; I know this well, three such tomes bear my name in the Great Library, and still there remain secrets I will take to my grave.
Sharrah arose later with dignity defiant of reproach. She called out to me again and I greeted her in turn, "Aria bless your dawn, mistress of golden feather." I spoke in my own tongue, of which she had learned a few words. Such a small thing to speak the soothing tones of Kefetiuan, my silken native tongue, but it flatters her. At that time she held fascination with all knowledge foreign. Had circumstances been otherwise, she might have been a fine diplomat.
"Wind to your wings, hoofsib," is her sultry reply. She has a fluted voice, delicate, remarkably so for a gryphoness. So easily could she have taken a different path, I think, but the wind called to her wings and the instinct of the hunt drove her too strong. She steps past me, through the arch that led to the stone projection that hung with pregnant repose half a furlong above the gardens of the city below. For a moment she fixes me with a stare, her visage still burned into memory, tawny hide agleam under the morning suns, wings momentarily spread and wicked beak parted in farewell. Then, she vanishes from the edge of the platform. Fate is a cruel and fickle creature; that was the last moment I saw her as truly beautiful.
Unannounced Orlandu approached beside me. In the months after perhaps he brought himself to believe that last lingering look of Sharrah rested upon himself. But it was my eyes Sharrah had met and I've wondered many times whether she suspected more than she allowed me to see. Gryphons, even to the adept, can be creatures of ceaseless enigma.
"A sight to stir an old drake's heart," Orlandu muses. His words are accompanied by a wistful breath. Orlandu was renowned for saying such things, proud beast that he was, yet his words are somehow endearing even in their eternal repetition.
My response was dictated by the rules of this tender routine, practiced each morn he arose, whichever lover lay entwined with him when dawn's light found them. "My lord, of course, cannot be suggesting she has sapped his strength." I allowed him the coyest gaze, my head tipped just so much to the side, well aware the loose robes of my sleeping gown revealed curves with which he was growing increasingly fascinated each passing day. While he allowed me access to even the most intimate moments of his life, I remained a mystery to him. It ate away at him, to be denied this, a powerful creature unused to being denied anything. But this was to be a very different day.
He answered me with the touch of his beak against my hand, tracing his way to the edge of my chin. As I regarded those cruel eyes, so vaguely reptilian, sensed the cool brush of a beak that cleaves flesh easily asunder, my heart skipped upwards. It was always a struggle with my senses to remain calm in such proximity. He nibbles my neck as he might a shy youngling of his species. This familiarity I permitted from him, subtly encouraged, for I knew the time would soon be ripe.
I give a scant lift of my chin, a wayward tilt of one ear... he was a master of the art of reading others, a xenophile of undeniable talent at the great winter festivals where he lay with the creatures of a dozen lands, enjoying whatever pleased him. Yet here, in his own chamber, he was at my mercy. I won't say this did not please me.
I let my gaze lower, speaking with humility. "You forever show my ignorance of your tongue, and shame me for my misunderstanding; my Lord seems to have much vigor left in him yet."
That mighty beak gapes, inches from my muzzle, expressing his bemusement. "Much." He agrees with his customary rumble, his beak sliding down, ever so tenderly hooking the lace suspending the robe from my shoulder, drawing it for a moment to tighten silk against the curve of my bosom. A direct enough suggestion, one made oft before and still considered subtle for one of this barbaric species. Polite; indeed, it was almost submissive for a gryphon. By this point, the thought was not without its attractions, but it was not yet time.
A shift of my shoulder downwards to free my gown from that grip; then lifting again in a sturdy rebuke softened by my words. "My lord has a busy schedule, this day. An impossible one, in fact, when he sets himself to a task for which fingers are infinitely better suited. You have a council to attend. Renalt will assign you every item on the action list if you are not present to defend your right to idleness." He accepted this reproach in stride, unshaken, lifting his crest feathers to regard me with regal consideration.
"Idleness." He clucked, "My muscles ache from the vigor of passion, only a hen could claim such a thing as idle." His head lifts higher and bobs once more, brushing this time past my ear and through the wave of my mane to caress the back of my neck. I experienced a prickling upon my areola, a tingle through my spine. This close, his scent tickled my nostrils, the seductive musk of a gryphon heightens all senses... made the stronger by the nectar of his lover, still glistening along the edges of his beak. His tone dropped to the faintest whisper, "Perhaps I should show her how idle I may become." I allowed my eyes to drift closed, his spell was nearly enough to overcome me, I admit freely. But I was saved, of all things, by the call of a gryphon near the tower beckoning Orlandu, an important summons.
Orlandu said nothing more, sliding back a step to look me in the eye again, and now I knew he read the answer to his question on my face. I would never be able to deny him again, after that. I experienced chills even after I changed to my robes of state, long after his departure.
--
Deliveries were made by the morning messenger and I settled behind my desk and went about my duties. The meetings of the council I seldom attended after the first year, save those of true import. The discussions there were carefully recorded by the designated clerk and were available to me for my review later, without the need to listen to all the bickering. This allowed me time to focus on the lower affairs of state, the mountains of paper that are the true machinery of Empire and a source of unlimited interest to a historian like myself.
Gryphon cuneiform possesses a sophistication for which it is rarely credited amongst scholars in Kefetiu. The harshness of the strokes offends their sensibility, and prejudice shows clear in their dismissive analysis. As one who has spent many mornings alone in that tower drafting and annotating sufficient quantities of gryphon documents to make a land bridge across the great sea, I feel amply equipped to rebut those brittle minded fools.
The strokes are disarmingly simple and deceptively subtle. The slightest variance, the change of a tiny angle, and one meaning becomes another. Thus, that day, did the story of two lovers come abruptly to an end and another story began. My senses were tingling. History would be made this day. With some regret, I did what I must. There are no heroes of history; only slaves to its will.
The council had of late enlarged the prisons that lay beneath the city, shaped from the living rock, far beneath the vaults that housed the libraries. Their newfound interest in punitive justice stemmed from the growing threat of insurrection as each decree of the council stripped their brethren of freedom, and slowly re-imposed the older institution of oligarchy, leadership of the people by their betters, the Masters of magic.
Moderate voices had thinned, of late, their ranks replaced by an order which drew its strength in the uncertainty of the Republic's citizens. Even as the high society became gripped by madness for security, for all his wayward proclivities the great mage Orlandu remained a fierce patriot, a voice of reason amidst a tumultuous body increasingly driven by fear. Still, it remained his duty to enforce the writ of the land, and many papers that now crossed my desk designated those who would soon find themselves to be occupants of the newly expanded detention facilities deep beneath the surface.
A name, perchance, drifted into my gaze on one such order. With the seal of Orlandu I stamped it, as I did all the others, and altered but one small mark when my quill brushed across the papyrus. A quick look and I satisfied myself that even the author of the report would have imagined the mark his own creation. The drake named upon the document was a potter, a worker of clay who now led a chapter of outspoken resistance against the regime. By chance, he was the neighbor of another drake whose name was not at all similar when spoken aloud, but written upon parchment was but the slimmest scribble apart. Holmadyn the potter. Tetsiaryh, Sharrah's godfather.
The orders were taken from me before noon, minutes after the drake's fate was sealed by my hand, borne away by messenger. In a climate of heightened tension, commands of the council were carried out with swift diligence. When the first sun reached her summit, her smaller brother casting long shadows down the steps of the tunnel before him, Tetsiaryh would have caught the last glimpse of natural light he would enjoy in his lifetime, perhaps clinging to that lingering warmth as he was led through traitor's gate. From there he would enjoy only the cold comfort of stone.
Word came to me of the arrest soon after. Did I know the lord Orlandu's mistress's godfather had been arrested by his seal? No, of course not; yes I had signed the day's orders as I was commanded. No, I had not read the guard Captain's list. Shocking. A mistake, surely. But Orlandu mustn't be disturbed; the council was discussing the finer points of a trade treaty with the Argalians. Surely this could all be sorted out by evening. Of course I would tell him, as soon as he was available. No sense searching for Sharrah either, her patrol would not return until nightfall. Best to wait; return to your post - that's a good lad, duty well done.
Nobody ever suspects a unicorn.
I bade my time, for there were enough guards that I could not know them all. But I had their schedules long since committed to memory. When the sun marched half its path back towards the horizon, I slipped from my desk and descended the narrow stair to the base of the tower and below into the bowels of the earth. I was frightened, then, for the briefest moment, of the power that I now held. But the fear soon passed, never to return. I no longer recall the words I spoke to the guard there, a familiar acquaintance. But he was easily persuaded to admit me to the cells and to forget my presence. Some promises are easily broken; he too, would never again regard the blaze of Shrilk's sibling suns by the writ of my hand. I could not afford loose tongues.
Tetsiaryh lay in his cell, but rose when the heavy door opened and I slipped within. I heard his intake of breath for a righteous bellow; disarming the onslaught only by the swift call of my voice in soothing tones. "Peace be with you," I told him. The door closes behind me, shutting us in darkness, but for all his age, he had enough time to make out my silhouette as I entered and was wise enough to know his visitor could have but one identity.
"What madness is this Kriah?" Anger yielded to indignation in my presence. "I am no criminal, I am not a traitor. You must tell Orlandu, he'll set this right!" I moved to him, searching fingers finding his beak, caressing. Sliding along to his cheek, I knelt slowly beside him.
"It was a mistake," I assured him in earnest, "But easily corrected, Orlandu will know by the end of the day. You'll soon be free." I felt him soften at my words, at my touch. Relax, as he must, for me to work my magic. I had little enough in this land, far from Kefetiu and the base of my power, but some subtle tricks remained to me. They were tiny things, scarcely worthy of mention, but when applied with delicate precision, it was enough to serve my purpose. My fingers caressed him, down his neck, to his breast, where I felt the beating of his heart.
"You came to me when you heard." He murmurs after a moment, surprised at my touch, even as his muscles relax to the press of my hands deep in his plumage. "You are a noble creature."
I felt the barest hint of sadness, but it was swiftly and surely overcome with the tremendous surge of excitement; I sensed with that moment the cresting of the wave, and peered over its lip into the darkness of the trough far below. "No," I whispered back to him.
It is so simple a thing, to stop a heart and the more so when it is old and frail... weary already of life. It takes only the barest nudge of energy. He went rigid for a moment, but no groan emerged, only the soft rush of air from his lungs as his head sagged, then collapsed to the stone with a final shudder. I caressed his breast a moment longer then rose and tapped lightly at the door of the cell, slipping out through the narrow crack that opened, and confining the corpse once again to its tomb of darkness.
I felt the strength to climb the highest mountain, to sail the seas to every horizon, to turn handsprings across ten leagues of meadow. The Republic's prow had emerged over the crest, and with the groan of timbers, its course now tipped ever downward.
--
Orlandu returned to the tower in ill temper as he often did when sessions stretched beyond the setting of Shrilk's second sun. He was later than I'd expected, and even in my excitement I confess I nursed a growing concern; it would not have done to have had Sharrah return before he was free from the Council.
But I had little enough reason for fear, a few marks of my quill and dispatches to the correct authorities bearing the seal of Orlandu and tongues were silenced. Melissan the messenger and Tamrath the prison guard, I commit their names here which have otherwise long since passed from thought and memory. Though of trifling importance they merit a mention, in death they assisted in bringing about a paradigm shift so great as to be beyond their conception.
I chided Orlandu idly about his brooding, completing the days work with swift strokes of my quill as he paced from one side of the tower to the other. A storm was gathering in the east, briskly transitioning dusk to darkness as a chill wind swept the tower. Night came and rain beat against the glass as thunder rolled nearby.
Then, quite suddenly, the doors to the platform erupted inwards. Haggard and soaked clear to bone, Sharrah bore upon her shoulders the fury of a banshee... stepping forward in a slinking crouch with a skree that muted thunder in its ferocity. Orlandu, shocked, rose from where he had surrendered his pacing and taken rest to gaze on the flashes of lightning striking down upon the city. So startled he was, that I'm sure at that moment he reached out for his magic, dropping it a moment later in astonishment as he gazed on his ragged lover, drenched from the downpour, flanks heaving and staring death down upon him.
"Where is he?" Her tone is the softest hiss, barely heard over the storm's fury. I rose slowly, stepping forward to observe more carefully the nuances. Strong words I had seen exchanged in the past, amongst those of the council, but a lover's quarrel was quite new.
"Funnels and whirlwinds, what are you talking about Sharrah?" Orlandu demanded. He raised himself defensively, wings mantling as I had seen gryphons do in bravado and anger. But this display was overshadowed by the predatory crouch of his mistress, as she slunk forward towards him, her eyes gleaming with murder.
Her words began with a rumble, rising towards a piercing shriek, "Where is my father you toad-bellied coward!"
For this Orlandu could have no answer, and I saw at once that he was caught off guard. His feathers slicked back, his head dropped guardedly when she stalked closer. "He remains where you left him, for all I know and care, " was his growled response. Watching as I was only a hint off to one side, to them I did not exist at that moment.
"Tch!" Sharrah's beak clacked sharply, menacing. There was certainly madness to her, boiling to the surface in this moment of strain. She was not born to this land, but traversed here through the pyramid portal, leaving a past life behind and forgotten. Tetsiaryh had taken her under his wing and tutelage, I knew in many ways they had been closer than true sibs. "By yourrr seal, he was arrrrrested!" In her anger, her voice slurred with a burr spurned by the Republic's sophisticated elite, revealing her provincial upbringings.
Orlandu's eyes turned, and came to rest on me... as did Sharrah's, I could feel them, boring into me with their hatred. "Is this so?" Orlandu had no need to explain further. But I was ready for this, had expected this moment to come. Spreading my hands, I offered but a humble bow.
"My lord," I made my voice placating, speaking barely above the fusillade of rain that beat against the dome above. "I seal all orders of the Guard amongst my duties, as my lord hath commanded. Whether the name of Sharrah's sire lay upon these many lists, I know not."
Sharrah snarled, head snapping again towards Orlandu. "Patsy of the Council! Fool! You go along with their every whim, endorse this insanity they unleash upon our own people!"
Orlandu was growing truly angry now, confusion laid aside under the weight of this stronger emotion, stepping forward, challenging. "We'll see to the bottom of this. If he was arrested, he'll be in the prisons."
Sharrah's eyes flashed. "Then he'll soon be free."
Orlandu ignored her now, walking past, brushing her aside with deliberate provocation. She could easily lash out at his flank, tear him with beak and claws, For a moment it seemed she might, but she exercised restraint at the very last and instead turned to follow. They dove back out into the lashing torrent as the skies opened up upon the city. I couldn't have planned it better.
--
There were preparations to be made while they were gone. The mage lamps I extinguished, replacing their steady glow with the flicker of candles scattered about the chamber. My hair I unbound, letting it flow freely over my shoulders. Upon the fire I placed a filled kettle, as if to brew tea, building the logs within the hearth until there was a cheery blaze. I straightened this and that after, fluffing the down of his sleeping alcove and reordering the cushions before the fire. Finally, I waited.
--
It was a desolate beast who returned to that platform, an apparition of the Orlandu I had known. Ragged and morose, his head hung low as though he had not the strength to carry it. Against dark feather and hide, in the dim light at first I could not see the crossed markings of the wounds on his chest and flank; but as water dripped from him, blood gathered in shallow pools upon the marble. He stumbled forward and I leapt to his side.
"My lord," I whispered in a tone of comfort. I touched his shoulder.
He shook his head, stepping free of me in his uncertainty and disbelief. "Sharrah - she has... Sharrah," His voice dropped to a whisper, "Sharrah."
I rested my hand upon his crest and drew him forward, further into the tower and across to lay before the great hearth. In his dazed state, he did not resist. I gathered then a few more items, clean soft cloths, the water from over the fireplace mixed into a large bowl with a handful of crushed herbs. He said nothing when I knelt at his side. The damage done was worse than I had imagined - not to his body, but to his soul. While he rested, beak slightly agape, his head bobbed in a slow, repetitive motion and his eyes focused on nothing, the fire dancing in reflection off his dark pupils. Dipping my poultice into water, I began to clean his wounds.
His body convulsed at my first touch, then yielded bravely to me, his head lowering with a whispered sigh. "Precious Kriah," He murmurs.
I answer him with a tender cluck, letting the numbing herbs take their effect upon him. There would be scars left from the marks Sharrah had given him this night; some would be hidden beneath his plumage, but two swipes extended to the ebony fur of his hind. He was drenched, a chill setting through him despite the heat that poured from the nearby flames. His wounds were too large to be easily bound, and I did not attempt to staunch the flow of cleansing blood but instead worked with my cloth, discarding it for another when it was saturated with the sanguine fluid.
We went a long time without speaking. A candle mark passed. It seemed an eternity before his breathing steadied, bleeding finally staunched, and there was a gathering warmth about him again, a sign of renewed life. I set my bowl and cloths aside, and leaned forward beside him, digging my hands in amongst his feathers at his neck, squeezing fingertips inwards, then releasing, slipping forward with coy hesitation. His head turned now to regard me, expression unreadable, but I did not stray from my path and stepped carefully astride his back. I lowered myself until I barely sat upon his shoulders, beginning to kneed with my fingertips, from neck to his breast, tenderly avoiding the ragged gashed left by his erstwhile lover.
His muscles coiled tight as a viper's; I sensed in him an uncertainty in his aura and demeanor I had never perceived before that night. Before me, bathed in the heat of nearby flames, beset all around by the fiercest maelstrom Raenlocke had seen in a hundredday, he was unmasked.
"I have done Sharrah... and my people... great wrong," He whispered, faltering then perhaps for the first time in his life.
I leaned in closer to him, working against muscles strained with fear and tension, my tail chancing to caress the top of his rump in its arcing swathe. Here above him, I drank in his scent with each breath, redolent with that hint of musk and spice. I let my tone sooth as best it might.
"You are a voice of reason, in treacherous seas," I tell him. "None can say you do not serve to the best of your power." His beak parted again, tongue lolling as he released a keen of anguish. After so long in near silence it seemed the howl of a wraith, not a living being, and the sound chilled to the depths of my bowels.
He spoke what he had come to realize was truth in that moment. "Tetsiaryh is not the only innocent to perish by papers bearing my seal." I leaned farther forward, almost crouched overtop of him, face slipping to one side of his own, giving in my touch a tender nepenthe to his soul.
"You bear that burden in the hopes your labor shall prove a salvation for many more. You would be removed from the council if you did not carry out these duties." His eyelids closed, and we rested there together, the moments drawing past... until at last I brought my muzzle to caress across the side of his beak.
For a brief moment even his breathing stopped, his powerful body utterly stilled between my thighs. Then with a growl, he twisted with the agility only a hunter can muster, seizing my shoulder, pulling me from his back.
I tumbled down beside him, helpless as he mantled above and one of his great claws swung high; I learned with that moment for the first time in my life what it was like to stand on the threshold of ever-after. My plan was undone, he had pierced my shroud - this was my thinking at that moment.
Then he swiped downward and hooked talons tore my robe from collarbone to pelvis leaving me in rags, heaving chest bared as his terrible beak plunged to caress my breast with a rough tongue. I gave a cry, unscripted, of terror and helplessness; prey to this barbarian, captive to his mean and brutish whims.
Stretched out impotent beneath him, he seemed much larger to my eyes than he had ever appeared before. Beneath his enormous bulk, I felt as a faun under his fierce passions. His beak teased my nipples, one and then the other, gliding smoothly against me. I gasped, regaining control of my emotions, fear reigned in, lust inflamed. My hands I brought to either of his cheeks, stretching myself out on my back amongst the cushions there, guiding him down slowly between my thighs. His head tucked inwards then, and for a moment I felt only the warm caress of his breath.
When his touch came, it was electric, his tongue exploring as his fore claw moved to stroke my thigh and guide my leg further aside. I called out his name when that slender organ entered me, but even in my pleasures I was not so far taken that I did not notice the respect he paid to each motion of my body, how he sought that which made my back arch and chest heave, committing these things to memory to play upon me again in the short months we would have left together.
We thrashed about before the fire, exploring in ways only dreamed of before this night, searching out one another's pleasures. The candles burned lower, I moved from beneath him to straddling across his belly faced towards his hind. I placed my finger tips upon his dark length, caressed, gathering his copious pre fluid and lathering generously up and down as he cooed in approval.
Neither of us gave any sign, for we both knew the moment had come. I slipped to the side of him, moving to crouch, and he in turn came overtop of me in a moment. His feathers brushed across my back, to my shoulders, as he covered me in that bestial way of my wild four hoofed ancestors. I felt him nudge against me, and I slipped a hand back to guide him. I was afraid - he was very large, and I knew also that in his lust and need, he would be rough. I guided him to the petals between my thighs, allowing my legs to drift apart just so.
Overcome by need, he pressed himself forward, and I cried out loud when he took me. A gryphon is an enormous beast, compared with a stallion. It hurt to have him in me, more than I'd expected, but it also felt more intense than I'd ever imagined. When I felt the soft fur of his sheath brush against my petals, I raised one trembling hand, reaching back to touch myself... That was all that was needed, the lightest pressure between my thighs, so long had I imagined this moment. Rapture.
An altogether successful day.
Epilogue
These notes I have written purely from eidetic recollection of the events as they happened, and despite the intervening years I judge it accurate; my memory has yet to fail me in fact or detail. When I close my eyes I still see that great ebony lord and his golden mate projected upon my inner eye, framed by the splendor of the tower that was my home for the four short years spent at his side. The events of that day represent the fulcrum; the turning point of the Republic of Shrilk. Orlandu withdrew from the council, and from most public affairs, and thus was lost the only moderate voice in the Circle of Seven. Driven by one side, goaded by the other, the population polarized and splintered. Sharrah joined the rebels and rose to the rank of General; she slew her lover in battle over what is now known as the Valley of the Damned, and in the months thereafter the sphere was torn asunder. Shrilk consumed itself in a paroxysm of reprisals, whole cities and aeries set aflame as neighbors turned upon one another.
For these centuries I have reveled in the melee of chaos around me, and the excitement that that comes from that teetering plunge. As I have watched Empires crumble in my wake, I have come to know better than most that as all things have a beginning, so to, do they have an end.
Mine awaits me now, with the coming of dawn. It is then a return to my roots that my last prayers are that this work is preserved and finds its return safe to the great library in Aletheiu, the final missing pages of my Odyssey in the barbaric land of Shrilk. I cast it now through the bars upon my window into the crashing sea beyond, imbued with what small magics remain to me that it may drift unharmed into the hands of one whom may perchance bring about its salvation and my own.
So signed by the Wanderer, Keeper of Chronicles, Warder of Papyrus, Kefetiuan. The daughter of a herdsman.
Kriah Ki'Jaret
The End
Notes:
Based on the history of the text based RPG SpheresMUX, http://www.spheresmux.net