A Song for Alewyn

I

Mist rode in from the coastline as his mount trotted steadily towards the sea-side city of Gul'Vadesh. He stared with furrowed brow at the spirals of the Mage hosts that adorned the sides of the Cardinal road with their inbred arrogance. Those secretive towers held little surprise for him, whatever part of him that was, but another part -- a part less concerned with affairs of magic -- sought comfort and found it the vast, fertile fields that glowed amber in the sunlight with their crops of golden wheat.

But any comfort he found dissipated when his mount touched the ancient, cobblestoned path that denoted the southern most portion of the Cardinal road. Turning right, heading North on the road, the great gates of Gul'Vadesh beckoned him. He faltered in his saddle as the horse trotted a path it knew well -- in his mind's eye a sea of memories as torrential as the crashing waves against the sea-side cliffs struggled back and forth and like beacons against the crushing rocks the figures of two women emerged from the tumult. From the fields arose the curvaceous and sensual shape of a woman called ... wife. But beyond this echo was a tall woman standing amidst the crystalline spirals of this civilization -- she was lithe and elegant and she called to that other part of him. He realized that other part was foreign; another's memories and desires.

As the gates of Gul'Vadesh loomed he sat in his saddle, remembering that he was the possession of a mage's essence and he had a task to accomplish. It was the redemption.

II

Gulls fought for scraps as the massive trollers emptied their catches into massive smoking caves.

She wore, as she did every day, the simple white slip dress that denoted her station -- it rested upon her smallish breasts and slender shoulders with the weight of a cloud. But despite her almost demure appearance she exuded a strength of will that could cower the sea. Yet it was with gentle but determined grace that she accorded the lute she carried everywhere. After a few tries, she found the right chords and replayed the melody that was her anthem to Thierann from the day he was lost with the entire fleet.

Melancholy and melody rose to meet the seaside breeze and latched on to the salty air as it spread among the sea-farers and the city folk and the merchants that busied themselves on the docks. All halted in their steps, reflecting the soothing spell her music cast. Every morning she sang to Thierann, knowing that if he lived, the song would find him and he would return to her.

She sang in the old tongue, as she was taught when she was in Mélit-Zar, the words harnessed the forces of love and devotion and carried them by wind and water across the ether to the one who would understand them. She closed her eyes and imagined Thierann rising from the waves, carried on the back of the dragons he had once befriended.

But the image shattered under the thunderous force of a voice rising from the assembled crowd. It answered her song, rippling across the people, the ships, even the sea itself. Staggering, she continued her song, peering at the crowd, looking for the one who answered her. But the powerful voice she heard was now part of a chorus as all the onlookers sang in answer to her plea -- she stared in awe as all their faces flickered between Thierann's visage and theirs. But suddenly the sea of faces shattered and the crowd parted, giving way to a single rider on a single horse. He was the one answering her, but now two distinct voices could be heard from his shadowed face.

She lowered the lute and studied the dark rider who approached her. He was tall, broad shouldered and thick in the arms and the chest. He wore a simple black tunic and cape broached at the neck by a shield she recognized. Thierann's shield. But the rest of him was much more physically imposing than Thierann was, and Thierann was not a small man. His face, though, was certainly Thierann's, but like the crowd, it flickered between her beloveds' and that of another man's.

He brought the horse to a stop a few steps from her and their song halted. The crowd watched with bated breath as the odd pair stared at each other, a mysterious stranger and the solemn and quiet mage-maiden.

She slung her lute across her shoulders and allowed her eyes to part from his disturbing gaze -- she paid attention to the thick thighs and massive arms and large hands that held the horse's reigns. His was a body forged by either war or some other demanding craft. His skin was lightly bronzed but she recognized the patterns of hair that were distinctively Thierann's. She quickly backed away when he suddenly let go of the reigns and drifted his left hand past the massive pommel of the heavy sword he carried. He offered his open palm to her and she floated to meet it. Despite the thick callouses and large fingers, she recognized the lines as easily as she recognized his smell.

"How?" she quietly asked, a single tear piercing the reserve that was the mage-maiden's hallmark.

"Morana," he said. "Thierann heard you, but I ... He was dying. I found us -- I mean him and he had only old magic left. We are Alewyn."

"Alewyn," she said as she kissed the hand she did not know but knew so well. "Alewyn: the Harbinger?"

Alewyn nodded at her understanding of the ancient name. In his old life Alewyn had simply meant, Alewyn. He touched her silky cheek and then leaned down farther, offering his hand to hoist her onto the mighty steed.

Morana hesitated a moment, her amber eyes showing and unaccustomed hesitation until she relented and took his huge hand. With a speed and ease as surprising as any magic she was lifted from the ground and deposited behind him on the leathery saddle.

III

Onlookers gaped as the mage maiden Morana wrapped her slender arms around Alewyn's waist as he triumphantly tugged the powerful mare in the direction of the home Morana has shared with Thierann. With a light tap to her haunches the mare launched into a gallop, forcing Morana to tightly hold onto Alewyn's waist -- she recognized this as the same trick Thierann used to make her hold onto him in the same manner when they first went riding together. She laughed as she realized this meeting had almost played out exactly the same way as when she first met Thierann.

Within moments the swift moving steed carried its load to the simple stone house that Thierann had conjured with his bare hands. Alewyn appraised it approvingly, his mind filled with memories of how Thierann had mixed the mortar under a high sun, readying to place brick over brick. Even wizards appreciated the satisfaction of manual labor well done.

With the same ease he had demonstrated when lifting Morana to his saddle, he gently deposited her to the ground and with a grace that defied his mass, Alewyn slid from the saddle. Upon touching the ground he put his hand against the mare to steady himself.

"Are you all right?" Morana asked gravely as she grabbed his other arm when his legs appeared to weaken. But it lasted only a brief moment and he he smiled at her with Thierann's tender smile. The rest of his face flickered disturbingly.

"There is ... strain. Thierann and the other self -- my self -- struggle."

Morana stepped back for a moment. "The other?"

Alewyn said nothing for a moment and just looked at her. His face halted it's shimmer and she saw Thierann's handsome, chiseled features reassuringly smile at her.

Morana nodded and she led Alewyn beyond the threshold of her home and into the house.

Once the door closed Alewyn turned to face Morana when thunder cracked in the house -- the mage maiden has thought the words and gestured with her hands and ethereal forces deformed the wall behind Alewyn. He gasped as the air was crushed from his massive lungs; a heavy, stony hand reached from the wall and held him steadfast in its irascible grip.

"What are you?" Morana angrily demanded, her scarlet hair swirling about her head like enraged serpents. "My song was for Thierann and suddenly you answer. You may look like him but I've been misled by illusions before -- if that is the case I swear to all the gods and demons I will flay the flesh from your bones!"

"If you had doubts," he wheezed as the stony fist tightened even against his mighty chest, "why didn't you ... Oh, the rules."

Her eyes blazed with raging energy as she stared at this ambiguous stranger. Was he Thierann in some strange guise shared with another poor soul? Her doubt made the stone fist tighten and the room filled with the sound of grinding stone while the stranger's face took a deeper shade of red. It has lost any semblance to Thierann and was now the face of a man weighed down by sadness.

"He told me that you were a ... a mage-maiden. An apprentice on her way to becoming a witch or a sorceress, depending on your will." The tone of the voice changed: "And what a will you have," Thierann added.

Morana's anger faded somewhat and the stony fist loosed its grip and air rushed into his lungs. "A mage-maiden cannot unleash elemental magic if unattended -- no more so than could a squire-mage. My father wrote those rules after Mélit-Zar was almost devastated."

"So you know the history of the academies." The fist held fast.

"Know the history," he whispered. "Memories are weaved together with fantasies and subjective recollections. But the emotions they illicit are always true. He -- Thierann -- taught you that every string of memory is anchored to a pristine moment and feeling. Follow them."

Morana's lip trembled -- Thierann had taught her dream weaving magics but it was a delicate art and she was such a novice. Yet, the stranger was right: Thierann had been the on to teach her, and the recipe to his specific dreams was unique and she would recognize as easily as she recognized the lines in the palm of this stranger's hand. If Thierann was in there, she might be able to unravel him from this Alewyn.

She drew a quick series of sigils and the stone fist released him and withdrew back into the far wall. Alewyn stood to is full height -- she was struck again by how he resembled Thierann, and yet totally different. She felt a a pang of guilty anticipation -- she had not seen a man disrobed since her last night with Thierann and Alewyn had many enticing qualities. That he smiled like Thierann was an added treat.

"There can be no interference when dream weaving," Alewyn/Thierann said. "Contact must be complete."

"I know."

IV

They faced each other, strangers inhabited by familiarity but inhibited by the strangeness the other represented. Morana's eyes roamed across Alewyn's broad chest, thickly muscled shoulders and arms and powerful thighs. Yet, for all his apparent might, he held Thierann's gentleness in his smile and in his slow, deliberate breaths. But the was a sadness in his eyes, a sadness she had never seen in Thierann -- something that was Alewyn's alone.

Morana closed her eyes and a fire blazed in her mind and formed the words of the spell -- her fingers drew the sigils and when she opened her hand, her garments and Alewyn's melted away in a burst of cool, even soothing, blue flame.

As she observed him, Morena realized his gait and overall musculature was that of a field worker, not a warrior -- but she noticed a dozen or so round scars that covered his chest and arms. Alewyn, once, had suffered the death of a warrior.

He looked down his body, saw the scars, and remembered the sky turning black and a voice screaming his name. His visage flickered and Alewyn, just Alewyn, fell to one knee and the tears flooded his eyes.

"I don't even remember her name ..."

Morana was taken aback by for a moment, forgetting her own nudity and rushed to his side -- as she held him to her soft, yielding, bosom, she became acutely aware of his masculinity. The hard muscles of his shoulders as she hugged him; the rugged smell, so like Thierann's, but much more primal; his cock, growing long and hard between his thickly muscled thighs.

As they touched, Morana felt the heat and the moistness spread between her wanton thighs and her nipples grew pert and long. Her passion was overtaking her and she brought Alewyn's face to hers and she gently kissed his forehead -- his tears spread to her cheeks and the sorrow he felt reached out to her and she swept it into her heart.

"I'm sorry," Morana whispered to him, kissing his eyelids. "But I have to unravel Thierann from you." She pecked him gently on his lips and pushed his dark hair from his brow. It was Thierann's length and color. "It will hurt."

"I know. In the bargain, he said I would get the worst of it. Do it. I have to know her."

"The body remembers what the soul may forget," Morana said. "Know me. Dream her."

"Do you want me? "

Alewyn looked at her -- she was so different to his dream. Long and filiform, Morana reminded him of an elusive doe, drawing the mad bull deeper in to the forest for an illicit tryst. And yet, he felt the fierce passion and energy she exuded, something he recognized from his past. His ... wife, he knew, had that same fierceness. But Morana made it physically palpable. Her limbs were slender but strong; her hips flared ever so slightly with sensual femininity; the rosy lips of her sex protruded ever so from the tuft of red hair and glistened in expectation. He stood to his full height and slid his hands over her hips and up her belly till he reached her small, firm breasts. Morana shivered as his calloused fingers raked against her raging flesh. She may have asked him the question, but she was certain of her own answer to the same inquiry: she wanted Alewyn, harbinger of Thierann.

"Yes," the two voices echoed, unified from beyond his rich lips and grizzled cheeks.

Morana wrapped her arms around him and squeezed him tightly, as though she wanted him to melt into her. Alewyn's cock nudged between her thighs and Morana sighed as the sensation of his silky smooth member. He started to kiss the side of her neck and she felt little spark ripple across her like tiny lightning strikes -- when he parted his lips from where he kissed her, the sparks shot from her skin and bounced off the walls for a few moments like fireworks.

Morana kissed Alewyn with the same delicate excursions in passion -- where she had sparks his skin erupted in burst of heatless, red flame. Their lips became explorers as they both sought the junction point that would ignite true magic. He mapped the shape of her flushed cheeks and licked the frontier of her jawline; she acquainted herself with the lobe of his ear and with the musky scent of his hair. Finally, their lips met and deep within her core, Morana's dream weave sprouted.

Their mouths succumbed and their tongues mingled, dancing, seeking, sharing. Their breathes became ragged as their hands roamed and danced across their naked flesh. Wherever they touched, the weave crossed into him and went about its mission.

(Alewyn is wandering, dazed, through the flaming remains of a small village ... There is a rebellion and this is the punishment for those who support defiance ... He finds her kneeling before a smoldering heap, her head hanging low and a dream bleeding from her eyes ... He has seen her at times at the market, and knows now she has no one to shop for ... )

Alewyn pushed Morana to the floor and attacked her pert nipples with savage kisses and laps of his tongue. Each contact ignited the connection between her nipples and her secret garden and she welcomed the burning desire than spread within her womb -- it was so ready to receive his cock that she half expected it to cry out his name before she did. But neither Morana nor her pussy could make a sound beyond a moan -- Alewyn had kissed his way down to her moist intimacy and was teaching her a lesson in tongues as his spread her velvety petals and pushed her thighs aside with his powerful hands and thrust his tongue deep into her. Morana eyes snapped open as she felt energy flow from him and spread like wildfire across the walls of her cunt while his tongue found the soft spot just behind her clit that called forth her river of bliss. Magics flowed through her soul, caressing the core of her being -- as Alewyn made love to her body, Thierann made love to her essence.

Alewyn pushed a stiff finger into Morana's pussy and flicked a come-hither opposite his tongue and she succumbed to the dual pleasuring, deluging his chin with her juices -- she heard him swallow them down, something Thierann did when they loved and this made her body shiver in pleasure.

(She loves him, Alewyn knows this ... Time has passed and she has mourned her past and looks to him with tender eyes and a fluttering heart ... He loves her more than she will ever know, but with a fool's eyes he doubts the depth she feels for him ... Perhaps, more justly, he doubts it matches the depth she held for her first family ...)

As Morana's blissful trance subsided, she whispered a word and designed a sigil with her fingers and Alewyn was suddenly cast aloft by eldritch forces. He hovered a short distance above her and floated to where his cock was level with her fervent lips. She supported herself on her elbows ans kissed the tip of her engorged member. He groaned as the touch of her lips and moaned as her tongue seemed to snake forth and ensnare his cock across all its massive length and even dance across his balls. His moans grew more desperate as she engulfed him completely in her warm mouth and suckled him as though he was her final meal. Her lips held him tight and her tongue followed the lines of his cock-head -- he convulsed as she seemed to tickle the very nerves and seemed to want to whisper a name that was just beyond reach. Sensing his mounting bliss, she ordered the eldricth to lay him on the floor in a more common position. She moved between his thighs and locked her eyes to his, wrapped her delicate hand around the shaft of his cock and began to pump him, lowering her mouth over his length and caressing him with her tongue when she moved up.

(The rebellion has found them ... Alewyn is jealous of the violence, fearing its apparition will remind her of her loss and that she has settled for less ... A fool's errand then to join the war to prove some delusional point, she says ... She loves Alewyn one last time before he goes to war, the world around them falls apart and she leaves him to his sword ...)

Morana stifled Alewyn's eruption and laid down on her back, beckoning him. He groan and crawled to her and leaned down and kissed her. His lips were slimmer now, and she realized his general size had shrunk. She was happy not all had been reduced as the dream weave worked to separate the two entities. She guided him into her pussy and felt his girth spread her pussy, releasing a renewed flood of her juices. She dug her nails into his muscular back as he proceeded to fuck her gently, each stroke a slow egress and painstaking ingress, driving her mad as her pussy sought a timely release to its mounting pleasure. But his pace quickened and she recognized the rhythm so many times experienced with Thierann. But as he fucked her, she felt warm droplets splash on her cheeks, leaving little icy patches on her skin. She bit his shoulder as her pleasure burned a path through her and she felt Thierann's magics spark and grow as her pleasure plateaued and she came, calling his name. He continued to pound her despite the sound of bones rendering and flesh ripping filling the house -- lightning erupted from both of them and streaked across the walls before smashing back into their sweaty bodies. The eldritch energies concentrated on his body, making glow as he fucked her relentlessly till her erupted. The force of his orgasm invigorated the mystic energies surrounding and as he filled Morana with his warm seed, he was split in two to the sound of sorrowful thunder.