by Willow Sova
CHAPTER 6
MEADOW OF GWILWILETH
A rainbow of bluebells, red poppies, purple lupines, scarlet lilies, and flaming orange daisies mottled the Meadow of Gwilwileth as they danced in the winds along the field. Voluminous white clouds sailed across the blue sky, their passing shadows the only fleeting darkness throughout an otherwise sunny day. From an assortment of berries, nuts, creamy cheeses, and Elvish bread that was packed into the satchel, Thalion and Sparrow filled themselves with its bounty, slurping down every few bites with sweet elderberry wine while they drowned in the sea of tall grasses and wildflowers.
“I’ve never been on a picnic before,” she said, admiring a colorful posy. She then sweetened her tongue with more wine.
“Is that so?” The elf poured himself more of the same into a fresh goblet. “Well, my dear, that’s a shameful waste of a wonderful day. I’ll see to it we picnic more often.” He raised his glass and clanked it with hers.
“I’d enjoy that very much. The weather is spectacular, and these wildflowers I picked are absolutely gorgeous. This one, here, is so unique,” she said before breathing in its light citrus and honey scent. “Never have I seen one quite like it back home. It reminds me somewhat of the lilies in my mother’s garden. What is it?” The girl pulled the large blossom from the bouquet. Its ruffled scarlet petals bloomed twice the size of her hand and embraced a finger-like, translucent pink pistil crowned with a wispy spray of sky blue stamens.
Snickering, Thalion folded his arms behind his head and leaned back on a comfy pillow. “That lovely lily is what many elves in Aeweniel call a Cunny Tickler.”
“A Cunny Tickler? Why is it called… ooooh,” Sparrow asked, looking up from the flower before bursting into laughter.
“Aside from its obvious physical qualities inspiring its moniker, that pretty bloom is a passion kindler. When it’s consumed by mouth or otherwise,” Thalion replied, his eyes twinkling with mischief, “it will send the most virginal maiden into a delirium before turning her into a libidinous lass.”
“How interesting,” she replied, staring into the fragrant flowers.
“I gather you’re not so intrigued?”
“No, I am. Though a thought just dawned on me.” Both his cock and curiosity were piqued when she simpered. “It appears between these lilies, the Maiden’s Delight mushrooms, and some of Aeweniel’s other flora I’ve seen, and I can only imagine by their attributes lend themselves to pleasing the elven ladies, there’s nothing in nature’s playthings tailored to satisfying the lustful appetites of male elves.”
The elf propped himself up on his elbows and said, “I can assure you, my lady: Nature has plenty of naughty bits to sate both sexes.”
“Is that so? Pray tell, what would those be?” The voluptuous lilt of her voice drifted through his ears to his sensitive parts, teasing him there until they rose like a leavening loaf beneath his sage trousers.
“I’m sure if you use your imagination you’ll realize how the playthings you mentioned can be enjoyed by males as well.” With a grin and flick of his brows, Thalion waited for her to realize the meaning behind those words. Once the girl giggled, he knew that she had. “However, tree-hugging, I dare say, is most likely the exclusive domain of the more masculine.”
“Tree-hugging?”
“Of course, Sparrow. You’ve never heard of tree-hugging? Just envision it: A resplendent maple, ironwood, or birch sapping from a puckered orifice the most sensually potent elixir, beckoning a lonely elf along his travels. He looks about. No one’s in sight. So he throws his arms around the tree and thrusts his throbbing tackle into the heavenly molten hollow.”
She cupped her mouth in surprise, blushing, and laughed aloud. “Sounds as if you’re speaking from experience.”
“Mmm. What’s a horny little elf to do?” Thalion winked an impish wink, flavoring it with a flirtatious smile. How I love being with her and hearing her laugh. Though he was unaware as to why, he sensed a sadness the girl was hiding since she arrived in Aeweniel. His mind raced with the possibilities. But he dared not ask, trusting she would tell him when the need arose. “Tree-hugging, however, doesn’t come without its perils.”
“Like what? A splint of wood in one’s woodie?” Her lips quirked at her own wittiness.
The elf fell back on the pillow, laughing. Once he caught his breath, he replied, “Oh, Sparrow. How you tickled me senseless with your words.”
“Then I’ll venture you don’t need any Cunny Ticklers to be tickled senseless.” The girl batted her black lashes and flashed a coquettish smile, peeking over the provocative blossom while she twirled it.
Oh, she’s so invitingly adorable! How he wanted to take her. Then and there. That playful gesture was rendered with such innocence—unlike his thoughts at that moment. His breathing slowed, like that of a stealth predator close to pouncing its prey. The girl did not know how near Thalion was to bedding her on that blanket. Unraveling the bodice of her diaphanous, buttery yellow gown and exposing those plump breasts wove through his mind. Ah, to taste those sweet buttons and suckle them into perky buds. The image only aroused him more till he thought he would burst his breeches. Passion stirred in his eyes, so he closed them and turned away, grappling to control his thoughts, his breath—his heart.
“My apologies. I made you digress. What are these perils you speak of?”
All he heard was his heart pounding in his ears until her voice rang above the deafening thuds. “Uh… pardon? Oh, uh… yes, as I was saying, um… tree-hugging can be rather dangerous if you happen upon snuggling the wrong tree.”
“How so?” Sparrow slid closer toward him, and he sat up to close their distance even more.
“Some trees are magical in Aeweniel and beyond in the Elven Realms, becoming more than living wood condemned to a stationary life,” he replied as he unwrapped sugar cookies from a cloth napkin. Thalion gave her one of the blue-sprinkled treats. “They come to life, their branches enlivening like elven or human limbs. Some even uproot themselves from the earth and walk about.”
“How fascinating! Mother never spoke of such creatures before.” Like a child hearing her first faerie tale, her face lit up with wonder. The elf found his heart melting as he gazed into the warm browns of her eyes.
“Maybe she never learned of them. Or, perchance, she surmised nightmares of walking trees might visit your childhood dreams. In any case, they’re very real.”
“You’ve actually seen them?” Sparrow plucked another wedge of cheese from a wooden dish while he washed down cookie morsels with a swill of elderberry wine.
“Yes, though I’ve never had an experience as frightening as Aranhil did when he was an elfling.”
Thalion went on to tell her of his brother’s first encounter with the hauntingly beautiful maple early one autumn morning when white mists wove through the wildwood of Aeweniel, the sunlight showering through the canopy doing little to diffuse the fog. Aranhil had set out at the break of day to hone his craft, ready with quiver and bow. Not one to harm an animal with his skill, he never pierced the flesh of one, for the elves of Aeweniel were not meat-eaters. Instead, his gift was practiced for enjoyment as well as defense.
As he had walked amongst the mist-embraced timber, Aranhil would slice through the dangling cones of pines, the fruits of apple and plum trees, and the kernels of walnut, oak and hazel trees. He would search throughout the forest for trees with woody knots and small hollows through which to fly his arrows. And on this morning, he had continued to do no differently when he spotted a burl on a great maple in the distance and targeted it with the tip of his arrow. But before releasing it, he had glanced a few inches to the right and saw his intended target had a twin. So he lowered the bow and peered at the two bumps blooming from its trunk, sensuously symmetrical, like the bosom of an elven lady. In disbelief, he rubbed his eyes and looked once more to find them, still there, waiting to be fondled. After dropping his gaze, he found to his delight a perfectly placed petite hollow brimm
ing with succulent sap.
Oh, the temptation!
Being Aranhil was exceptionally randy, as fully fledged elflings tend to be most of the time, and now only more so given the vision of his newfound lust, Lady Maple, as he came to call her, he rushed through the forest to have a tryst. Then what did he do once closing proximity to the enchanting maple? He looked about. No one was in sight. So he clutched her silvery bark breasts and thrust his eager cock into her alluring well.
Under an amorous haze, he succumbed to her arboreal form, enamored with the warmth of her sapping hollow as he stared high above, gyrating into her, mesmerized by her glorious crown of blazing red, orange, and gold leaves. A tingling rush coursed through his cock as Aranhil rocked into her again and again, his member engorging as though it would explode, so he hurried his thrusts with the determination of a woodpecker until he spilled his seed into her.
Oh, how utterly sublime!
The elfling was floating on air, rolling his hips into her, slowing little by little, when a sweet serenity filtered throughout his every fiber from head to toes. His auburn hair was soaked with sweat, his chiseled body beading wet. Exhausted, he leaned against the arboreal lady, hoping to recover from their coupling. But when he tried to pull his elfhood out from her, poor Aranhil found he was stuck.
He wriggled his rod, again and again, to loosen her hold.
Still, no luck.
He tried again. Then again.
But his bulge did not budge.
Crackling sounds filled the air as Lady Maple came to life in a fashion unlike most trees. She swung her limbs, tousling his hair with their wind, and wrapped them around Aranhil. The maple drew him in skintight against her trunk. As the elfling thrashed in her grip, a slumberous moan thundered beneath him, petrifying him to a stillness of stone. Rough bark crushed against his face, and two warty bumps shifted into steel-grey eyes, staring deep into his own.
“Mmmph. You are not leaving me now, are you?” The timbre of her voice was like the purr of a mountain lion, low and sultry, vibrating through to Aranhil’s bones.
He stood stunned. “I apologize for… uh… disturbing you, my… my lady. But I must go.” Not wishing to compromise his cock by offending the lady, he avoided the urge to avert his eyes.
“No need for apologies. You filled me with your seed, thereby awakening me, allowing me an escape from my ennui. So my fun is only beginning.” Her lichen lips tickled him as she spoke.
“I… I’m afraid I… I can’t stay.” The elfling watched as those lichen brows crimped and her black pupils drowned in the grey pools of her eyes—he regretted speaking those words.
“Then I am afraid I shall not release you, my lord.” She fastened her branched arms around Aranhil until his ribs felt they would splinter. “Pleasure swings both ways. You have had yours, now I want mine.”
“But I didn’t realize you were a bewitched tree of the forest when I—”
“That matters not,” she said, her greyish-green brows scrunching in disapproval, as her mane of leaves shook with a shush, shush, shush in disagreement. “Once you ravished me and spent your seed into my hollow, you awakened a desire in me that must be quenched. Otherwise, I will wither and die.”
“That can’t be so.” Aranhil strained to suppress a skeptical smile.
“Oh, but it is.” A devious grin crept over her lips.
“So if I make love with you once more, then you’ll let me go?” As wonderful as his fling was with the unsuspecting maple, he was eager to escape from her grasp. If the price was simply another coupling, he thought he could indulge Lady Maple that.
“It is not so simple as that, my amorous elfling. Certainly, I will free you once you oblige me. But if you are untethered to another by true love, then you must return once every sennight so we may continue our… mmm… carnal union.”
She swayed like a belly dancer after these words, seducing his spent rod to spring to life again. Those hardwood hips spiraled against him as he clutched them, her silvered form teasing his loins with every pass, sending him panting with glee. Her crown of foliage swished, raining autumn-hued leaves upon him; they tickled him as they fell and started him into fits of laughter while he peered into her fiery canopy… enchanted.
“Aaaah, my lady.” Her rippling well engorged his cock even more with that euphoric elixir until his viridian eyes rolled back into his head.
Lady Maple swung and swiveled, her seductive dance inviting him to explore that bliss he enjoyed only moments ago, before she came to a halt and said, “If you do not, then I will surely wither and die.”
Aranhil struggled to catch his breath. Though he loved how the luscious lady swaddled his knob, he fought the impulse to acquiesce to her advances. “And… if I’m bound to one… by true love?”
“Then you are free to leave and never return, if you so wish,” she answered with a nonchalant air.
“Very well. I’ll oblige you this time and never return.”
“So you are bound by love to another? Answer me. Truthfully. Or I will pulp your cock within my splintery hands.” An eerie rumbling leaked from her lips as she leered at him and squeezed his tender parts.
“No! No! Please, forgive me, my lady. Indeed, I’m unbound.” The elfling petted the arboreal lady’s rough, silvery brown cheeks to placate her.
“I see. The truth shall be unlocked under threat to be uncocked.” A hearty guffaw roared in his ears. “Mmm. This knowledge could prove most invaluable.”
“Again, I apologize. I was foolish to attempt forgoing my obligation to you. I shall return. I promise.”
“Worry not, my impetuous little elfling. Once I am done with you, it will not be under threats of any kind that you will return to me. For hereafter, with me as a willing partner, you will fly beyond the pleasures you savored only moments ago. You will yearn for me like one seeking the temulent refuge of mystical weeds and liquid spirits, and you will hunger for me most feverishly.”
And just as she had spoken, so it happened. Aranhil had visited her every sennight as she required, spellbound by her at the first light of day and under the darkest skies of night until his spirit was consumed by her, his heart poisoned by the very thought of withdrawing from her. Blind he was to his obsession with Lady Maple. And despite numerous counsels from Thalion and Saeldur, his brother was deaf to their words. Many times over, the trees of Aeweniel had weathered the nurturing rains, then blossomed young leaves and flowers, then relieved their heads of leafy crowns until their naked limbs had glazed over with ice before Aranhil had come to his senses. And only then was it by some fortunate circumstance: He had found true love in Evelyn.
After telling the story of Aranhil’s lovemaking mishap with Lady Maple, Thalion was quite taken with the girl’s unquestioning acceptance of it all. “You know, Sparrow, I’m amazed by your open fascination with this world. You seem to welcome what life in Aeweniel has to offer without judgment.”
“I believe hearing Mother’s stories of Aeweniel since childhood has given me a sense of familiarity with this place.”
“Perchance. Although most humans would’ve been screaming “diablerie!” if they stumbled into a world with promiscuous maples and passion kindling flowers. You, however, seem unfazed by it all.”
“Nary a day has gone by without Aeweniel feeling more like home than my village where I was raised. There, I was never free to be who I was, always hiding my magical gift. But here… well, I just couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. Could you?”
“Even if I could, it wouldn’t matter. My magic will be lost if I leave her. So I doubt I ever will.”
His other reasons went unspoken. For, like a jealous lover, Aeweniel had a firm hold on shifter elves who dwelled there. The farther in distance and time they traveled away from her only weakened them, physically, spiritually, and magically, ensuring their eventual return to her. Were Thalion to depart Aeweniel without end, then the dwindling of his days on Earth would begin. And though his demise might be gradual, i
t would be no less agonizing. Absence from her bled the spirits of shifters dry, of their energy and will to live.
But he could not tell Sparrow he was a shifter, about his beast—not just yet. The prospect daunted him. What if she rejected him upon hearing of his true nature? Since he was a shapeshifter, never had an elven lady entertained the thought of having him as more than a transient lover. How could he expect a woman from a land so foreign to his own to feel otherwise? Maybe the girl could accept this enchanting world without question, with childlike wonder, but to accept and love his beast?
Never.
Thalion learned long ago, love had its limitations. Love from the elven ladies was limited to those not of his kind, to those with elven blood not sullied with beasts. In the offering of it, there was always the threat of denial. Hence, rejection of his dragon spelled likewise for him, since they were one and the same.
Yet unconditional love knew no boundaries, and he would require such love for one to accept his beast. Only then could he escape from Aeweniel’s hold. If Sparrow was the soulmate he had sought over centuries, the one pure of heart who loved him without reservation, despite the disclosure of his dragon, Thalion wanted to be certain she proclaimed so without pity. So, for now, it remained in shadow, awaiting the day, if ever, his beast should come to light.
Sweet Sparrow, you’re not alone in hiding who you are.
CHAPTER 7
FIRST LOVE
Over a month had passed since her arrival, and Thalion was struggling to curb his emotions and keep them in balance. Every night while striving to sleep, he would glance across the cave to where she lay. The green lights always cast a silhouette of her body, allowing his eyes to trace her curves through the sheer curtains as she slept. And while Saeldur had admonished him to keep his distance, he could not deny himself the pleasure Sparrow brought him. She was a lovely respite from all the troubles plaguing him since Aranhil’s loss of Evelyn.
With each passing day, he craved the girl more. The splendor of her smile warmed him like nothing else ever had. From the moment he saw her lying in the canoe on the waters of Emlineth, the elf sensed a connection to her—inexplicable though it was. Whether she could feel drawn toward him and his dragon, he was uncertain. For now, he was content having her close by, being a friend to her. But Thalion knew a time might come when he would need more. And that time was fast approaching. Desperate to smother his passion, this evening, he rolled over, facing away from her, before falling asleep.