bushels and pecs
Once, and then again maybe several times, we imagined a world in which the weary adventurers could call themselves home to rest, the battle won with sorrow to the grave but the earth itself intact for to receive their sleeping bodies. We imagined, crucially, what might happen when the loose ends were left lagging, ready to be tied up.
Finally, Aletta Manor could serve a designated purpose, and house these wounded warriors as they convalesced their pride in beds of grass-stuffed mattresses and feather down, coverlets layering between them and the solid plane.
That was for Lora and her Blades, as well as Hugo and his, anyway. And Mythra, of course, because she loved sleep and its little death like no other did. No sooner had the crowd cleared from the steps of stone, the parapet and the porchlight, than had she called dibs on the deepest recesses of the hallway. Some minor quibble occurred between Brighid and Aegaeon, over duty and dignity and keeping one's eyes open all night, but they soon retired.
Lora and Haze gazed querulously at each other; wondering, surely, can this possibly be our great fortune? Shouldn't we be just as well off - which is to say, secure - if we slept outside, as we always have? It's different, in an inn. It's different, in a city of all locals and travelers.
It was different, in the manor, because Addam came to stand beside Flora at the entrance and beckon them all in. Jin watched for Lora's reaction, as he always did, and Haze tried her best to do the same.
In the end, the entire central hallway was completely occupied with the honored members of the once-armed band, and the boys to boot.
It only left Minoth to be dealt with, and he was so lucky as to smuggle himself into the shadows and avoid consideration (Mythra, who might most easily have remembered, made her fastidious disappearance and left nothing to be said about it).
"Oh..." murmured Flora, rubbing one hand on her chin and the other beneath her belly. "Maybe the side room? It's only a sofa, but it's something."
To one side, she whispered, "I can tell you're as loath as I to ask the others to share."
And Minoth only nodded silently, amenable to whatever solution would get it handled the quickest.
When lord and lady of the land had quietly conferred and put out the lamps, turned back the sheets, slipped into bed, they at last had their own chance to marvel at the comparative bliss of a domestic life - together at last, with no danger of being separated again. Well, and that was with all remaining faith in Mythra, and Zettar and Amalthus, not to cause further trouble, but if she was asleep one floor below, how much trouble could she possibly cause?
Addam stared up at the ceiling, memorizing each dip and craggle of stucco, the path of the moonlight as it translated its overnight arc, the sound of quadwings beating their flights about the moor.
"Is it all right, Flora?"
She had his right arm pinned, his torso an anchor where very recently she'd had to make do with a bolster pillow. Still, she slept closest to the threshold from the hall. If attackers hadn't gotten to her in a year alone, they wouldn't get to her now - and there were Blades in the house, outnumbering the humans, to seal the deal.
"It's alright, Addam," she replied, not to placate but to soothe. It's alright to have something you've always been so sure that you want.
It's alright to have peace. It's alright to have friends. It's wonderful to have family.
The following morning, while the moor itself still slept with lazy creatures abound and violent tyrants banished, Addam stirred and was surprised to see that selfsame familiar stucco pattern greeting him.
Flora still rested in his arms. The blinds on the window in view of the bed still hung with pleasant, even spacing. The twittering of birds and bugs and bees still reached his ears.
"Goodness," Addam said to himself and to whatever stagnant air would stand to listen, "I'd forgotten how nice it is to sleep in my own bed."
It should be such an obvious truth. It was a plainly obvious thing. But he still remarked upon it because he liked the sound of hearing it aloud.
It was alright, still.
So Addam stretched, not even caring if he did disturb Flora, because there was time enough to startle and resettle. Plenty of it!
He stretched from the center of his back on out, pointing his toes and rolling back his shoulders. Just as he was about to risk knotting up some charleyhorse or other in his left calf, he decided to gently replace his own form with that hardworking pillow and crawl out of bed, footsteps soft but careless, and walk to the window.
As soon as he was up, however, it became apparent that there would be no coming or falling back to sleep. The road had made him too wired, the looming threat of Malos too vigilant. Wakefulness was a perpetual state of mind, and each day was a treasure never again to be gifted.
Addam shuffled to the washroom, forgetting entirely whether or not he had slippers for that sort of thing. A rug making interface from his feet to fine-sanded wooden floors obviated the need to look.
Meanwhile, Minoth had slept as all Blades, and this one in particular, did: with awkward posture, full regalia, and an aching Core for bond. He hadn't tossed and turned, because there was hardly room to do so on a futon-minded couch, and he'd taken hours just to allow himself to toss the extraneous throw pillows to the floor, but he'd still found a staggering amount of discontention in what should have been such an idyllic place.
(An inquisitive mind like his also noted that the room was soon to be converted into a nursery, with some infant-intended packages leaning against the base of the armoire, but this was a fact that couldn't be avoided and had no bearing upon a single night's sleep. Probe into every darkened corner of the place where trim of wall met square of ceiling, indeed, he did, but there was no baby border pasted up there, so he took no issue with the shadows' shapes.)
Well. He was fine. He was just that especial type of restless where your struggle was fueled by the lack of a specific strife to pin it on.
This morning, Minoth arose and found his mouth dry and full of off taste, not to mention his skin equally unhappy, so he let himself into the washroom and flicked on the light, planning to start running the sink in as much relative silence as he could.
He had entered from the washroom's side door. While he splashed his face, worried at the edges of the scar just to give his eyes anywhere else to look, and searched the cabinets for a toothbrush that looked unused (this to avoid intrusion more than to suit any sanitary concerns), Addam entered from behind him, facing the mirror.
Addam wore no shirt, having disrobed down to the underpants the prior night, and was stretching with alacrity, mouth open wide and eyes covered with half-balled fists. As his arm, elbow pointed diagonally upward, extended, so too did the muscles in his chest.
Minoth stared into the mirror, back still bent and cupped hands leaking the paltry dregs of reserved water, again avoiding his own gaze. It was very easy, given the competition. Almost criminally so.
He turned off the tap, begging it not to creak. It deigned to disobey his prayers, however, and gave one undignified squeak.
Addam finally finished his giant dog's yawn and refocused himself.
"Oh. Hello, Minoth."
"Hi," said Minoth, without a shred of swagger.
Letting his assorted limbs drop with an exaggerated flop of energy, Addam flashed an early-morning version of his best jocular grin. It could have been as bright as the sun, and it probably was, but Minoth didn't notice, because he was still staring at Addam's chest.
"I suppose I'll leave you to your privacy," Addam said, pronouncing the short I sound as if - in Minoth's mind - he was emphasizing the state of secrets that one kept with oneself as one readied oneself for the day. Things like slapping yourself and saying, damn it, I look good today. Damn it, he looks good today. Damn it, I know what I want.
Little secrets. Petty, personal things. Addam would have turned on the spot and gone back out the way he'd come quite happily, except that Minoth still hadn't moved.
"Minoth?"
"Uh?"
And then Flora knocked, called once for Addam, and let herself in in short succession. Because that, apparently, was how they did things. Now, to the total contrary of what Minoth had planned and envisioned, the three of them were standing in close quarters in a cold-stone room, Minoth with his ass toward the door and the other two in sleep clothes.
Flora winced, shook herself. "I'm sorry, I don't know how I forgot that you'd be here. Addam," she smiled and tugged on his arm (the same one that she'd been holding all night), "why don't we both go back to bed, then?"
She said it as if interrupting someone's ablutions was no big thing and as if Minoth should expect them to be coyly, innocently, virtuously cozy with one another. And he did, sort of, because he wasn't stupid. But it was still sort of...incongruous, with which to be confronted.
He straightened up. Cleared his throat. Looked at Addam looking down at Flora. Looked at Flora looking up at Addam. Traced his own eye movements in the mirror. Shook the last drops of water from his fingertips. Sucked in a breath and turned around.
"All yours, folks," he said, forcing a grin. He might have been smooth, but he wasn't that smooth. Not nearly smug and sly enough to turn a trick while the corner of the vanity was poking into his right cheek uncovered by chaps.
The strangest sight of all came then, when Addam and Flora both cocked their heads in confusion at the exact same angle and timing.
"Minoth?" said Flora, because she must have been the more genuinely curious of the two, not knowing him nearly as well.
"Present and accounted for." He swiped an errant drop of water from the suggestion of peach fuzz along his jaw.
Flora's lips worked at a few combinations of words: probably things like "Are you alright?" and "Did you sleep well?" that a good hostess would be in perfect rights to ask.
It was certainly not that Flora wasn't a good hostess, the best and preeminent for all anyone in rural Torna was or had ever been concerned. What the last Lord of Aletta's wife had done, few people knew. He'd not had friends to show her off to, was the going theory, and the going was fine for a nobleman like that.
But Addam had friends. Addam had family. Addam even had whatever Minoth was. So Flora, in her infinite hospitality, asked Minoth, "Would you like to come back to bed with us?"
His jaw dropped so slowly and so suddenly that he had no time to think about pretending to yawn, as an alibi. Addam was biting his own bottom lip to keep from laughing, it appeared. Oh, very funny, Prince. How'd you like it if your best friend ambushed you while you sang in the shower?
(Well, so maybe he'd like it. And was that such a crime?)
Minoth blinked, once or twice or thrice. "I...um. What? Why?"
Flora smiled, nose wrinkling with a purposeful show of amusement. "Because you're staring at Addam's chest, and I think it's funny."
"Well, they do say you always want what you can't have."
It came out so morosely that Flora grabbed his hand and pulled, the better to escort the two of her men together back to the rumpled duvet and the head-impressed pillows. Perhaps it could be excused as a display of generosity, from well-meaning homeowners, that when beds and rooms are in short supply, you offer from the most treasured of your possessions. Only a moment or two of puzzling on that train of thought had Minoth swiftly swearing his hopes that no one would have the chance to ask.
He should have been dizzy. Maybe he was. Nearly delirious, depleted of all reason. Flora laughed at him, beamed at him, ran her thumbs over the planes between his knuckles. No shot that it was merely a medical examination of fatty tissue; as soon as Addam's palms hit Minoth's flanks, he was gone into the fields.
Soon enough, he was laughing too. It was funny, wasn't it? Get a load of the lucky strikes on this guy!
Beyond the nightly shut door of the master suite, the rest of the party had trooped outside to cook their usual provisions for breaking fast. Maybe some eggy curry or vegetable stir-fry, maybe something a little more adventurous and celebratory. For one thing, it was no sense wasting the ingredients they'd already gathered, and for another, none of them felt comfortable making use of the manor kitchen's equipment without the Origos' say-so. Not even Mythra.
Of course, no one made a mention of it, because it was obvious when Addam was or wasn't around, but eventually someone had to breach courtesy and say it.
"I wonder where Addam is..." announced Lora, around the mouthful of onions and carrots she was savoring. Hums of agreement echoed around the weakening fire, unnecessary for heat in the beginnings of true summer but still a sense of their itinerant home as it crackled.
"I'd wager he's probably just taking the chance to sleep in with his wife," replied Brighid from her prim and spotless seat and corners of lips. The same agreeable nods were heard as the group collectively opined that the life of a lord must be quite tiring indeed, and that their shared concept of Flora's personality made this a worthwhile prospect indeed.
"I suppose Minoth wandered off somewhere," said Jin. It might have been a touch uncharacteristic for him to say so, but at times he picked up the consequent where Lora laid out the antecedent. Haze was in hearty consensus with this statement, and exclaimed, "I hope he's alright!"
"He can take good care of himself," Hugo said, as warmly as possible to extend reassurance to Haze. "Maybe he had some business to be getting back to."
Now the hums soured, just a bit. Mythra slumped slightly deeper into her distended expression. Another side effect of Amalthus? How was it fair for him to up and disappear when she was still chained here? Sorry, staying here. Waiting so nicely and patiently. Just waiting her turn.
Minoth, of course, was more than alright, and had no worry of waiting for a turn even if he had found his current situation lacking. Addam and Flora had successfully convinced him to remove his jacket and gloves, his various and sundry uncomfortable pieces of armor that he had always thought he was hardly himself without. Now he lay in an approximate line across the bed, head end squeezing and sucking on Flora's tits, hind end fingered with every inch of Addam's farmer's expertise.
Not only was Addam blessed with admirable gifts upon his chest, transformed from breasts into the appearance of firm, supple pectoral muscles by years of careful binding and replacement hormones, Flora's own breasts were swollen and heavy with the effects of her pregnancy by a specially-treated sperm cell created through the ingenuity of clever healer Blades. No amount of Indol's research into the parallels between human and Blade DNA could hope to compete with the earnest innovation of Torna's humanist science, in Minoth's opinion. But, then, he wasn't of the mind to consider that either Addam or Flora might, then, one day be able to carry a child bearing his genetics, and that was another matter entirely.
It was as if Minoth had been granted the joyous work of reaping the seeds once sown for a bountiful harvest. Did it ask for an enthuastic effort on his part, to continue teasing Flora until she gasped and pulled his mouth from her nipples to meet her lips instead? Oh, without a doubt. Did it require endurance like few men had ever dreamed of, to be both giving and receiving of pleasure, in steady and overwhelming cadence? Absolutely, it did.
But Minoth was more than equal to the task. Seeing as he couldn't get his teeth free to whistle, he just smiled as he worked, hummed and kissed and moaned. When Flora pawed at his chest to ask, breathlessly, for him to let up just for the moment, he wrapped the crook of his elbow around the nape of her neck, both joints similarly sweaty, and kissed the top of her head with soft words and warm breaths.
Addam even had to pause in his ministrations to arch an eyebrow. "What, not impressed by me?" But he was just a little bit too keen, too sharp, to actually go cold, so Minoth had no time to answer. Instead, he jerked in a sigh, wrapping Flora (and her chest) tight to him as he worked his hips against Addam's wrist. She shuddered too, hungry and sated in one by the all-over sensation of skin on skin. Their body temperatures and even their heartbeats had equilibrated to each other, a single lovemade unit.
"No answer..." mused Addam. "I see how it is." He kept working, eager to see his task through to the end, but as he did so he wriggled his own free arm around Minoth's back to Flora's far shoulder, rolling the two of them towards him and his waiting embrace. They were all three barechested, but only Minoth was completely naked; perhaps some misplaced gesture of modesty drew them all together.
It wasn't what he had intended, when he left Flora for only a moment to relieve himself in the quiet of tile, but Addam would never say that pleasing Minoth wasn't gratifying.
Each grunt, as Addam plunged two fingers into and out of his cunt, only proved their once-apocryphal theory, that Minoth was just desperate to connect with them. With anyone, really, but if he could get two kind and beautiful souls whose four total breasts were a feast for the eyes and the face alike, his choice was all but made for him.
Addam pressed his chest to Minoth's cheek, playful even while he sought to bring Minoth to his metaphorical knees. "You're mean to him, Addam," Flora said reproachfully, with what little of her own composure she had remaining, but a silent signal from Minoth quelled that worry: no, no, more, more!
So they gave him more, as much as he wanted, luxurious in their three-way simplicity and their eternal wellsprings of hope all offered so freely and willingly to Minoth, handsome Minoth, whom Flora found so funny and so charming but even more striking when he was deadly serious in pursuit of pleasure.
At last, Minoth gasped his deepest rout of inundation, soaking the skin between Addam's fingers and squeezing his climax into Flora's chest. Flora petted his hair (while Addam wondered what to do with his hand full of spend), kissing his jaw and praising him.
"Oh, wonderful, Minoth," she murmured, blissfully content to keep this position forever. "So good for us, my love."
"Good?" Barely coherent, Minoth panted his confusion. "I didn't do anything, I- I didn't even--" More disbelieving breaths. "Architect, Addam..." Lord. "I didn't even ask."
Addam shook his head, tut-tutting. Didn't even what? "You asked with your eyes, my friend. A good cropstender knows that that's how the hungriest of us all eat."
minochi's garden of earthly delights (boobs)
- imaginary post-ttgc
- Mr & Mrs Domestic Bliss in da bedroom but jinlorahaze + ardainians + mythra take all the bedrooms on the middle floor so minochi has to be put in the side room
- morning addam no shirt big stretch goodness i'd forgotten how nice to sleep in my own bed etc
- minochi washing his face as quietly as possible
- addam appear in the mirror still rubbing his eyes and whatever
- minochi O_O
- please sir can i have some Boobs
- everyone else outside roasting breakfast
- i wonder where addam is...
- probably just sleeping in with his wife :nodding:
- i guess minoth wandered off somewhere...i hope he's alright
- more than alright (sucking on flora tits)
#myoutline