The first time a man tried to proposition Yelena in the tavern, it was a local who should have known better and she tried to let him off with a warning. When that didn't work, she threatened to break his wrist, but she did it quietly and secretively so he could retreat without losing too much face, which shouldn't have been her problem but stopped him making it a bigger problem.
The second time a man tried to proposition Yelena, he was a drunken traveller and she had less temper, so she went straight to threatening to break his wrist, twisting it until his elbow slammed into the bar hard enough to deaden his entire arm.
The third time she felt a hand grab her arm, her fist only stopped an inch from the man's throat because she recognised the face trying -- ineffectually -- to jerk back in shock.
"Damien?!"
"Yelena!" Damien gasped.
"When the fuck did you get back?"
She threw her arms around him, which made him flinch away before he rallied to return the hug.
"I am now a Master of the Arcane Arts," he said grandly, flourishing one arm, when they were seated at a table against one wall with a flagon of cider each.
"Aha," she said, letting her cynicism show as her gaze roamed over his stubbly face and sturdy, drab, travelling clothes.
He shrugged, unabashed. "Well, I'm a Journeyman of the College," he said. "But I have passed all my tests, graduated from my position as apprentice, and am now officially a Journeyman, allowed to wander freely without supervision."
"So, leaving for the Academy wasn't just an attempt to try and impress me?"
He looked hurt. "No, that was just a handy bonus."
She laughed. "It would only have been a bonus if I had actually been impressed, Damien."
"True, but you kept fucking me, so that was good enough."
"I kept waiting for you to impress me," she said before taking a swig of cider.
He appeared unperturbed by her dig. "You enjoyed yourself."
"Well, there wasn't really a better option, was there?"
"Is there now?"
She grimaced and shook her head. "I spend most of my time in the forest now, anyway, checking my traps and seeking out deer or small boars. I'm making a good living off meat and skins, but selling and buying is the only reason I come back into town these days. If I could stay out four or five days and just collect skins, all the better. There are others who live out here, but we don't really have the right relationship. It's been me and my hand, most nights. Occasionally a traveller, but most of them are too old, too young or too full of themselves. Then, when I come into town, people forget I have standards and I usually have to hurt someone."
"You need more Journeyman Mages," Damien said.
Yelena raised one eyebrow with glacial slowness.
Damien crossed his arms on the table and leaned on them. "Look, Yelena, I remember how I could always make you come but you were never really satisfied."
"Funny, I remember you being more self-confident than that," she murmured.
He shrugged and sat back. "It's true, though. I could never go long enough for you."
"One of us was fit," she said. "Not my fault you spent all your time in books and couldn't last."
"Pretty sure it was your fault I couldn't last, you always got impatient while I was happy to keep playing with your sweet cunt," he said.
"Oh, it's 'playing' now, is it? And are you trying to tell me you've got a body under those clothes, now?" She looked him up and down, craning slightly to see more of him past the table.
He grinned. "Well, I have been doing a lot of walking, and I did train in using this staff for fighting, so I've got more body than I used to. And more practice with other things."
"College takes girls too?" she shot back instantly.
"Always has. You're not the last woman I had sex with, just the first. You're not even one of the last five."
"Is the boasting intended to help?"
He smiled as he leaned forwards again. "It's intended to say I've been practising. And I've got more skills available to me, now. I'm a Journeyman, after all."
Yelena stared at him. "Are you telling me you use magic for sex?"
Damien grandly waved one hand, making fire briefly dance along his fingertips for a second. "Magic can do many things for us -- and to us."
"You can keep that away from me," she retorted, pointing at his flames.
He laughed. "Merely a demonstration. There were many of us who did... extracurricular studies in how to use magic to play with each other. I developed certain skills."
"Is that a branch of magic? Can you find ancient experts who have devoted their lives..." she began.
He laughed. "No, merely an application. It uses elements of healing magic, elements of manipulation... even elements of combat magic."
"What?!"
"You can use a sword to skin a deer or carve a door-handle," he pointed out.
"Not by first choice!"
He shrugged. "There are many applications of magic. Most of them are quite flexible if you have... a certain disposition. And a lot of practice, of course," he finished with a grin.
Yelena stared at him, then grinned. "Alright, You've got me. Promise me you won't hurt me, and you can show me just what you've learned playing with other girls' 'sweet cunts', Journeyman."
Damien smirked. "Oh, you won't be hurt, and you won't regret it. Do you have a house?"
"Or do I just live in the forest, do you mean? Oh, I've got a house. But it's in the forest. You'll have to do some walking if you want a piece of me."
"I've walked all the way here from the Academy. Ready when you are."
#
Yelena walked with long, tireless strides. She was taller than any other woman in Beechfall, the same height as Damien but with boots slightly thinner in the soles -- giving her feel and a light footfall -- than Damien's thick, sturdy travelling boots.
He kept pace easily, swinging his straight, carved staff so it went *tok, tok, tok* on the cobbles until they left the village's well-maintained road and cut onto dirt. His travelling cloak flapped about his knees but was held onto his back by his bag.
Yelena only had a waxed cloak she could use to keep the rain off or the wind out. A hunting knife at her hip and a coil of rope -- that had been tied around pelts -- were the only other things remaining from her trip into town.
The night was warm, so it was not long before Damien pushed his cloak off his shoulders and opened his jacket.
"So, how many women have you fucked at the Academy?" Yelena asked as they walked into the darkness. She needed no light, but Damien set a floating magelight behind his shoulder to dimly illuminate the path in front of them.
He considered. "Not exactly sure. One of the instructors, who was young and was teaching subjects I never took. Several fellow students, some of them once, some of them on and off, a few regularly. A few girls from the town. A couple of travelling musicians, once. Not together. But there was a core group of us who met up from my second year until we all made Journeyman, to swap spells and techniques and suggestions and to experiment on each other."
"Each other? All at once?" she asked.
He chuckled. "Oh, yes, sometimes. One of us would volunteer to have something tried on them. There were rumours once that students were conducting dark rituals to summon demons. The instructors flatly quashed that and they would know if anyone tried it, but I sometimes think we were responsible for starting them because somebody saw or heard something and misinterpreted it.
"But mostly, it wasn't a group thing. Maybe three of us at once. So there were seven women, nine men who were the core group. A couple who came and went. We all took it very seriously and interrogated anyone who wanted to come into the group. Some came in, decided it wasn't for them and left but were still friends with us. We turned away many more than that."
He shrugged. "Probably where the demon-raising rumours started. Someone got mad they couldn't play with us."
The trail began to meander as it plunged between trees, so Damien dropped behind Yelena for easier going.
"You just want to stare at my arse," she said.
"You're wearing a cloak!" he objected.
Her small house was set in a barely larger clearing. Inside, her bed shared the single room with a basin on a stand, a chest, a fireplace and several weapons hanging from the walls.
"The river is just off that way, I do most of my skinning and cleaning there," she said, waving out in the direction of the forest.
"Cozy," Damien said, looking around. "My room at the Academy was about this size. All I did there was sleep or fuck, though. Do you spend any time in here?"
Yelena, crouching to light the fire, shrugged. "Sleeping. Sharpening my blades. That's about it. If I have meat to sell, I take it straight into town or to a farmer or woodsman out here. I'll sleep in one of their houses, if it's late. There's a few of us out here who could do very well without Beechfall."
The fire caught and held. "It'll be warmer in here soon," she said. "These walls keep it in well."
Damien stepped over to the fire. He put a thicker log on it then held out his hand towards the flames, palm out, and concentrated.
Both Yelena's eyebrows rose.
In seconds, the log crumbled to ashes and warmth washed out of the fire, banishing cold from the room and making Yelena instinctively sway backwards.
"Show-off," she said as she hung her cloak on a hook.
"I just want to help us feel comfortable," he said as he put another log on to maintain the fire -- which had settled into a natural burn -- then dusted his hands smugly.
"You mean you want me to get naked faster," she drawled.
"That's just a handy bonus," he smirked. He dropped his own travelling cloak on the chest and followed it with his jacket.
Yelena raised her eyebrows when she saw his shoulders inside his linen shirt.
"That's fair," she said, untying the laces at her shirt's throat then pulling it over her head.
Damien's eyes gleamed.
Under the shirt, she was wearing a snug but lightweight version of an abbreviated bodice, which finished above her pants and kept her breasts tight to her chest.
"I thought I remembered you having bigger breasts," Damien said. "Why..."
"Comfort," Yelena said sharply. "And a usually futile attempt to not have so many men interested in me."
"Ah."
Unlacing the bodice took longer than the shirt had, and Yelena sighed with relief when it came off.
Then, Damien's eyes really did gleam. Yelena's breasts, freed, were a couple of handfuls bigger than they had appeared, firm enough to sit proudly, capped with nipples already thickening, and perhaps even larger than they appeared because they sat on top of solid muscle.
The rest of Yelena's torso was as impressive as her breasts. Damien's eyes widened when he stopped looking just at her nipples and let his gaze roam. "Hellfire," he said. "You look stronger than a city guard!"
She smirked at him and rolled her shoulders. Muscles showed themselves under her belly and rolled in her shoulders and arms when she flexed them. They didn't bulge, or they would have been noticeable under her shirt, but there was no spare fat on her and she oozed a sense of power. The firelight, coming from low and one side, highlighted everything with long shadows. "I'm a hunter. You try carrying a deer for three hours."
