Aramil Liadon, elven ranger, was excited. He was finally leaving his forest home and he couldn't wait to see the world beyond its borders. He and Narlissa had left his village earlier than day and were now woodwalking quickly through the trees.
But first he needed to locate a rare herb known as Ghostbloom for Narlissa to bring back to his village for a magical ritual. Whilst Aramil didn't fully understand the ritual, what he did know was that the Tree Mother herself had asked him to retrieve the herb, so he had vowed to do so.
However the journey was a little slower than it might have been because he did not have a horse. All horses were owned by the clan and they did not have any spare for an elf that was leaving the forest. He would miss the elven horses as they were light and nimble of foot but he was sure he could eventually buy a human horse and would get used to it quickly enough.
After a few hours of amiable chatting with Narlissa the two of them came upon a clearing and Aramil stopped woodwalking. Whilst the forest was at least three days across from end to end the village was much closer to the north end than the south. Aramil and Narlissa had gone north and so it was only a single afternoon's worth of travelling that brought them near to the forest's edge. He knew they were very close now.
"There is Ghostbloom here," he said, smiling at Narlissa as he began to stride through the undergrowth.
"How do you know?" she asked.
He shrugged. "I just do." He looked around. "We are also very close to the forest's edge, but you will not make it back to the village today. Perhaps we should camp here for the night?"
"Sounds good," Narlissa said. "I'll get everything set up whilst you find the Ghostbloom."
She turned and started to build the hide tent that Aramil had brought. The fact that she was not putting up her own was no surprise - it had been obvious from the start that they would be sharing the one tent that night.
He grinned to himself at that thought then spent a few minutes looking for the Ghostbloom. The sun was beginning to set and the sky had taken on a beautiful orange glow. Aramil knew he would miss the natural beauty of the forest but he was also excited to see other places that were each as beautiful in their own way.
After a few minutes he smiled as he saw his target. He reached down and with his knife carefully cut a few flowers from the Ghostbloom plant that had found. He made sure none of the plant directly touched his skin and quickly wrapped the flowers in a cloth bundle. It was a very potent magical herb and he did not want to spend the night hallucinating because some had accidentally touched him.
Then he saw another flower and he quickly plucked that too before returning to Narlissa. She had the camp set up and was cooking a meal over a small fire.
He handed her the bundle of cloth when he arrived and she carefully put it in her own pack. Then he sat down on the large blanket that Narlissa had laid out in front of their tent. Minutes later they were eating and he enjoyed the meal Narlissa had prepared. She was a talented cook.
When they were done she tidied away the pans and then smiled at him.
"It's beautiful here," she said wistfully and he nodded in agreement.
It was then that he remembered the second flower that he'd picked and he quickly reached into the pouch at his waist to draw it out. A single bright red rose. He handed it to Narlissa.
Her face lit up in a beautiful smile as she took it. "For me?" she said, turning it over. "It's quite beautiful, Aramil."
"Then it suits you."
She smiled at the compliment then lay the flower delicately on her pack. She turned back to him and he saw a naughty sparkle in her brown eyes. "You know, if I didn't know better I'd think you were trying to flatter me, Aramil. You couldn't possibly be trying to get inside me, could you?" she grinned.
"I brought you the flower because I thought it was beautiful and you would like it," he smiled back, playing her game. "If there is to be any sex, well, that is an unrelated thing."
"I like how you say 'if', Aramil. It supposes there is any chance at all you won't finish this evening filling me with your cum."
He put on a fake tone of aloofness. "Narlissa, you are singularly obsessed with sex. I, however, can control my urges and not act like an animal in heat."
The beautiful half-elf laughed. "I saw you emerging from the Tree Mother's house before we left. It's pretty obvious what you'd just been doing. You're just as sex-obsessed as I am, and you know as well as I do where this night will end up."
"The Tree Mother was merely, er, giving me some advice."
"Advice on fucking her brains out, perhaps."
"You make it sound like a bad thing."
"Not at all. The very opposite, in fact. I'm delighted to see you expanding your horizons, Aramil." Narlissa paused then, cocking her head and she seemed to be deep in thought. "In fact, you seem to have expanded them a lot since we first met, haven't you?"
"Well..." Aramil said suddenly embarrassed.
"There's nothing to be bashful about. But I saw a lot of the attractive young women of the village eyeing you with something approaching outright lust. There was the fletcher's daughter, Polissa, and that mercenary from the capital, Korali, and others besides. And obviously the Tree Mother herself."
He shrugged. "I suppose so..."
Narlissa looked concerned. "Aramil, I'm going to ask you some questions, and you need to be totally honest with me in your answers, ok? It's important."
He sat upright. Their flirtatious game was suddenly over and she had become very serious. What could she possibly be talking about that was so important? Well he supposed he would find out.
"Of course."
"Do you love having sex, Aramil?"
He narrowed his eyes in confusion. "Well, obviously."
"No, I mean actively love it. Not a fun hobby you do when the mood strikes, but something you find yourself craving all the time. Is even this talk of sex getting you worked up? Is it making you think of me, naked, writhing in ecstasy beneath you?"
He coughed, looking away. "Maybe."
"And does this happen often? Do you find you need to come at least, say, twice a day or you become a delirious mess, just looking for a woman who'll have sex with you? Do your partners seem to have stronger orgasms than they ever have before in their life when they're with you?"
He met her gaze. Everything she was saying was true. He'd been noticing it himself but it was still strange to hear someone else describing it so perfectly.
He swallowed. "Yes. I... how did you know?"
"One final question," Narlissa said, holding up a finger to stop him. "Did all this start happening not long after we met?"
"Yes, Narlissa. It did."
