Refrain

by Nathan Ravenwood

  Janaza reached down and took hold of his wrists, rubbing her thumbs in gentle circles on the underside of his arms. “And what is that?”

  “I don't know,” Vann grumbled.

  “Then don't worry about it.” She looked back over her shoulder. “Be what you want to be, Vann. That's the only way to be. Follow?”

  “What about you?”

  She blinked. “Me?”

  Vann raised his head to look her in her gorgeous golden eyes. “What do you want me to be?”

  Janaza didn't say anything for a time. She looked away from him, out the window, though her mind seemed to be beyond the forest, far away.

  “I...” she began. She turned around in his arms and kissed him gently. Her mouth still tasted faintly like Cel, but the warmth there was all her, the press of her tongue familiar and delightful. Vann kissed her back, reaching up to cup and squeeze her breasts as he rose to her need, his cock stiffening against her thigh. When she pulled away, her eyes had that playful sparkle in them he'd grown so fond of. “I want you to be inside me, Vann. Seeing as how we got distracted by satyr pussy earlier.”

  Vann smiled. “Then turn back around.”

  The orc did as he bade, turning around and leaning up against the window. She thrust her ass out, and Vann stepped into his familiar position behind it, his cock slotting into the cleft. He rocked his hips back and forth gently. His fingers curled into his favorite spot on her, where her hips flared out into her thick waist. Then again, every bit of the orc was his favorite part of her, it just happened to be that from that angle her hips were his favorite at that moment. Soon he was nice and hard, leaking pre onto the small of her back as he kept up his teasing.

  “You know you want this,” Janaza whispered.

  “I do,” Vann murmured. He guided himself into her slowly, gliding all the way to the root in one smooth motion. A shudder passed through the both of them as they were joined together, Janaza's hips reflexively pushing back against the pleasant intrusion between her legs. “I do.”

  Their earlier romp with Cel had left them both slightly drained, so Vann opted to not go full tilt and fuck Janaza into the wall. Rather, he moved his hips slowly, savoring every exquisite inch of her slick heat as he pulled all the way back to the tip and slid back in all the way to the root. He slid his hands up to her breasts, cupping and kneading them between his fingers as he dipped his head and nibbled on her ear. “First Gods, Janaza.”

  “Spirits, you've gotten so much fucking... mmph!” The orc moved her hips in opposition to his, her ass meeting his pelvis with gentle slaps that a part of Vann's brain realized was a perfect 4/4 time signature. “You were good to begin with, but now – fuhhuck – now you're so... so... mmmph!” She clapped a hand over her mouth to keep from crying out.

  “I had – ah! - the best teacher,” Vann growled in her ear. “With amazing tits and an ass to die for.” He slapped said ass lightly, making Janaza squeak against her fingers.

  “You... mmmmph!” She twisted her head around to kiss him as best she could, the two of them moving in time with one another, their pace staying constant as they climbed towards their peaks together. The orc crested first, shuddering violently in his arms as her cunny clenched tight around him. She moaned into his mouth as she came, and came again in rapid succession, her pussy fluttering around him. Despite the fact that he felt as though he'd emptied every drop of cum in his body into Cel earlier, Vann felt his orgasm rising quickly, and didn't slow down a bit until he slammed himself home inside the orc. His body pressed tight to hers as his cock pulsed and spurted within her, once, twice, thrice, again and again, until Vann was seeing stars that had nothing to do with the ones visible through the window.

  “Spirits,” Janaza panted, straightening up. “I needed that.”

  Vann trailed his lips down from her ear to her neck, goosing the nape. “Aye.” He pulled out of her with a wet slither, his cock drenched in cum that leaked out of Janaza's pussy.

  Then Vann jumped as a pair of soft lips kissed the underside of his cock. He looked down to see that Cel had crawled out of the bed and was nuzzling his crotch, lapping at the slick cocktail of sex on his cock. “No fair,” the satyr purred.

  Vann shuddered as she stimulated his already sensitive length with her lips and tongue. “I thought you – yee! - were asleep.”

  The satyr knelt down in front of him as she cleaned him off with her mouth. Janaza looked down at Cel with a bemused expression on her face. “I think we're going to get along just fine,” she said.

  Her arm snaked around Vann's shoulders and drew him into another ferocious kiss. “And don't you worry about Rorzan,” she murmured against his lips. “I'm sure you and he are just fine.”

  ***

  “The absolute fucking idiot!”

  Rorzan had kept his head through the whole afternoon, as the satyrs had pulled themselves together after being attacked by MacAngus and his men. He'd stayed cool in the Elder's Chamber, and in talking to Vann afterwords. He'd kept it all bottled up as Arielle helped the satyrs put some of their village back together with her magic.

  But now, having moved a ways away from the village with Arielle, the sun long set, Rorzan finally gave vent to his anger. Well, as much as he could, being immaterial as we was.

  “We fucking had them!” he yelled, punching a tree with as much force as he could and growing more and more irritated as his fists passed through the tree again and again. “He had one of the most dangerous of the High Lords almost beaten, had him in his sights, and all he had to do was light the fuse! But! He! Didn't!”

  “I'm not too happy about it either, Rorzan,” Arielle said.

  “It would've been easy!” Rorzan whipped around and flew right up to Arielle. “I don't have any magical senses left but you better be damn sure I felt something when they all harmonized earlier in the plaza. They could've atomized that whole group, brought their ship down to boot! But he didn't! Why didn't he?”

  “He doesn't have the killer instinct yet, Rorzan,” Arielle said. Her body tingled with the memory of her tryst with Vann in the hold of the galleon as they'd crossed the seas. For all his physical and magical strength, it had taken her some prodding to get Vann to satiate her in the way that she'd needed. Eventually he had, with that magnificent beast between his legs. “He's only a month out from being a palace servant.”

  “Well, he better fucking find it soon!” Rorzan snapped, reaching up and threading his fingers into his hair. “We're about to go to war! And if he can't muster up the will to lay waste to people who wouldn't show him any mercy, he's going to die, and we'll be fucked without him.”

  “It's not as though we're going to be invading Ibanz tomorrow,” Arielle said, reaching a comforting hand out towards his back only for it phase through him like it always did. The elf felt a hurt deep in her gut that she couldn't comfort Rorzan physically as she so often had centuries ago. Along with that ache was the burning hatred she felt for her people for what they'd done to the both of them. She would never forget that. “We still need to muster more support, gather more allies together. It will take time. We can work on hardening Vann into what he needs to be.”

  Rorzan tilted his head back to look at the stars and sighed. “You're right.” He turned to her and offered her a small smile. “What would I do without you?”

  “You'd be so lost without me,” she teased.

  The ghost folded his arms and looked off into the woods. “I'm sure Marebaas can provide us with plenty of support. If we go back the way we came we can petition Ashern for some of his people, and maybe he can get a missive to the Matriarch for an aerial squadron. There's got to be others we can turn to.”

  “I recall the captain of the galleon mentioning that the Bowes Freebooters are still around,” Arielle said.

  “Really? Fucking hell, we'll take those.” Rorzan paced in the way only a ghost can, floating back and forth in measured distances. “Our best option, honestly, is the orcs.”

  “Janaz
a's been awfully tight-lipped about what's transpired on the Isles the past few hundred years. Still, one thing at a time. This is going to take a little while.”

  “For sure. But we'll get to it.” Rorzan nodded to himself for a moment, his eyes closing in thought. “But they'll be moving too.”

  “Best start immediately, then.”

  The ghost looked over at her. “Arielle, can you do me a favor?”

  “Of course.”

  Rorzan inclined his head to the north, towards a small mountain in the distance. “Remember the old crystal mine at the base of the mountain?”

  “Didn't we have sex in the mineshaft?”

  “That we did!” Rorzan said. “Fun times. Listen, can you go check it out tomorrow? I want to see if...” He trailed off.

  Arielle nodded. “Aye. I can.”

  “Be safe.”

  The elf reached up and closed her hand around his. Despite her fingers phasing through his, she liked to imagine there was still warmth to the contact. “Always.”

  ***

  “Where's Arielle?” Ori asked, sitting at the table with her taloned feet propped up on the slab of wood.

  “Sent her on an errand, she'll be back by nightfall,” Rorzan said from where he floated above the center of the table. “Follow-up question, where were you last night?”

  “I got sucked in to helping some of the satyrs fix their stuff up, and then a couple of the bucks brought out a barrel of something, and I don't remember much else, honestly.” Ori's eyes shifted over to Vann. “Why do you look like you didn't sleep a wink?”

  Vann let out a slightly-crazed laugh. His pelvis ached, his cock sore from the myriad couplings he'd had with Janaza and Cel the previous night. He'd consider it a small miracle if he had anything left in his balls at all. “Because I didn't really,” he said, rubbing his temples.

  “Sorry we're late!” Janaza and Cel breezed into the meeting room, both of them freshly bathed with clean clothes on. At the sight of Cel, Ori immediately perked up, her big eyes following the satyr's path to a seat on the far end of the table. Janaza parked herself next to Vann, giving him a peck on the cheek. “Good morning,” she said cheerfully.

  “You are way too chipper for what we did last night,” Vann muttered. The orc merely laughed and kissed him again. He looked past her to Cel, who's only acknowledgment was an almost imperceptible smile and a wink.

  “I think that's everyone,” Marebaas said from the head of the table. “Rorzan?”

  “Right!” Rorzan clapped his hand and did a neat backflip as he floated down to the level of the table. “Now that Cel is on board, we have a fully rounded band. With that, we can really make some headway into what comes next.”

  “And that is?” Ori prompted.

  Rorzan turned slowly in mid-air. “I look at everyone sitting here and I see a bunch of people that never fit in. A perfectly capable man who, because he didn't meet arbitrary standards of what's permissible, was cast aside by everyone. A harpy who lost her wings. A satyr who chooses to stay quiet rather than be loud. And Janaza...” He pointed to her. “Not entirely sure how you fit into this extended metaphor but I'm sure I'll find something.”

  Janaza's jaw twitched almost imperceptibly, but her expression remained neutral.

  “But what if we could build a place to call our own?” Rorzan continued, still turning to look them all in the eyes. “A place where every man and woman, regardless of species or origin, can build a life? I tried it once, and got my ass kicked. But this time will be different.”

  “How can you be sure?” Janaza asked.

  “Because I've had three hundred years and change to think on my mistakes and figure out how to not make them again.” Rorzan's hands clenched into fists. “And I know we can do it. You four are just as capable of fucking shit up as my old group was. We can start again, do things right this time. The southernmost country of the human lands is a terrible place, full of slavery and misery. I say we go fix that.” He pounded one hand into his other palm. “What do you say?”

  “The satyrs answered the call before, and we’ll be glad to do so again,” Marebaas said. “Our warriors are yours, Rorzan.”

  Vann looked down at his hands. Just a short while ago, he'd been polishing library shelves with them. Now, he could use them the way he'd always wanted to, to bring music and magic into the world. Despite his reservations about Rorzan's methods, carving out misery from the world and replacing it with a place where anyone could be themselves sounded like a noble goal.

  So he raised his head and nodded. “Aye.”

  Janaza's fingers squeezed his thigh under the table. “Of course.”

  Ori looked unsure and glanced at Cel.

  “I will come,” Cel said.

  “Okay, I'm in!” Ori said.

  Rorzan gave her a curious look for a moment before shaking his head. “And I already know Arielle's answer. Alright, it's settled then.”

  “Hang on,” Ori said. “Is it just going to be us doing this? Seems like a tall order to take a whole city with just the seven of us.”

  “Oh, it's impossible,” Rorzan said. “Luckily, we won't have to. Marebaas?”

  The satyr Elder stepped up to the table and grabbed a map from a compartment in the table. He spread the paper out on the heavy oak slab. It was a map of the known world, with all the major cities and areas of control separated by dotted borders.

  Marebaas grinned. “Where do we start?

  Epilogue

  Arielle emerged from the treeline near the old mine when the sun was at its zenith in the sky, wiping the sweat off her forehead with her hand. She stepped forward towards the entrance carved into the side of the mountain, a cavern that seemed to swallow the light streaming in. Her nostrils flared, trying to catch a whiff of anything out of the ordinary. She smelled the woods, the minerals in the rocks, a faint tinge of moisture in the air.

  What she didn't smell was any animals. And that concerned her.

  She stepped forward into the mine, conjuring a strand of her omnichord with a flick of her fingers. A few errant notes and a single Sung word produced a witchlight that hovered near her shoulder, lighting the way forward into the gloom.

  The entrance of the mine showed signs of it's long abandonment, a few tools left lying about rusted over and brittle to the touch. Cart rails had been set into the floor with iron spikes, they too long rusted and falling apart. Arielle held out her hand, directing the witchlight back and forth.

  The further in she went, the gloomier the darkness around her became. She summoned another witchlight, directing both around her like a conductor for maximum visibility as the passageway twisted and turned into the depths of the mountain. The air grew chillier and damper as she went down, but she still couldn't smell any signs of anything living there. This place had been abandoned for three hundred years, something had to have moved in in that time.

  After a long while of walking in the dark, Arielle walked into the main central area of the mine, a massive interior dome carved out of the mountain itself with magic. She sent one of her witchlights zooming up to the top of the room, directing it to glow even brighter and illuminate the whole space. She saw the pockmarked mine tunnels along the edge of the walls, burrowed into the rock like an anthill, along with the ledges that the mine carts ran along when they still carried hauls out of the depths to the outside.

  She moved towards one of the side tunnels, her boots echoing in the empty cavern. She strained to hear something, anything else – the scuff of a wolf's claws, the snuffling of a bear, even the tiny chittering of mice or rats. Because if animals were around, it meant they weren't. But if not...

  Her lights shone on something on the floor of the tunnel, and her eyes snapped to it.

  Lying on its side was the skeleton of a wolf, long-decayed into bones and scraps of meat. However, the skeleton was mangled and twisted, it's back almost snapped in twain with deep grooves gouged along the bones themselves. The skull had been pulverized, a neat hole
bored through the top and bottom halves of the muzzle.

  “That's not good,” Arielle muttered. She hurried over to the wall, closed her eyes, and pressed her ear to it.

  For a time, there was silence.

  Then, ever so faintly, reverberating through the rock from the depths of the mine, she heard it. Scraping noises. Shuffling, like something large and heavy and wet being dragged along gravel.

  Then, a keening wail that made her ears hurt even though to her it was as loud as a whisper.

  Arielle backed out of the tunnel and hurried back into the main chamber. She summoned her omnichord, then conjured a volley of magic missiles and lobbed them at the entrances to the side tunnels, collapsing each and every one of them. Once that was done, she turned and ran out the main entrance, collapsing the whole entrance behind her with another volley of projectiles. Then she superheated the rock into slag, forming a wall about thirty feet thick.

  It wouldn't hold them forever. When they eventually found their way up, they'd get through it. It might take them years, but they would eventually.

  Arielle put a hand on her chest, as if that would stop her heart from hammering at two hundred beats a minute. “That's not good at all...”

  ***

  “And you let him go?”

  Yilon felt as though he was twelve again, before he'd found the hidden crawlspace that overlooked his father's office. He and Eckert stood outside the thick oak doors of the study, their ears pressed to the wood as they attempted to hear what was being said between Lord MacAngus and Lord Branna. The two men weren't making it all that difficult, given their volume.

  “We were clearly outmatched, Fandar” MacAngus snapped. “Vann showed a moment of leniency and I took it. Enough of my men died in this fool's errand.”

  “You should have gone back!” Fandar was practically screaming, a rage that Yilon had never heard in his father ever before. Even when he was a child and he'd accidentally overturned a bust of his great-great-great-grandfather, his father had never yelled at him like this. “I told you to bring him back to me!”