First off, I want to thank everyone who is coming along on this journey with me!
This is quite a long one, and I understand the slow burn might not be for everyone, that said... this is the final feels-trip before Thix and Gerard get their well deserved reward.
Also, I would like to apologize for any poor grammar due my fantasy-definitely-not-french.
I am not french. I don't speak french. Does that mean the story is going to be getting any less french? No. Definitely not. The only mercy is eventually Thix will start learning to speak and understand Galtes and I won't have to keep translating.
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What had once been a place of shaded comfort, had turned almost maddeningly stifling. Each day spent rocking along the road was an interplay between stretches of dull hours, language lessons, and relentless sexual tension. Each evening, when the light finally became bearable, Thix would leap outside for fresh air and a chance to move around freely.
Gerard wasn't helping matters, though it wasn't as if Thix had exactly tried to stop him. There had been other conversations since the first where he had reiterated that he wouldn't be upset if she used what he called her 'safe word' to get some space, and that he would honor his pledge to stop tormenting her.
Thix had thought about it, a lot, but just couldn't bring herself to actually do it. It was like a game. She would protest, and whine, and curse, and all the while she yearned for more.
The next few nights had been spent in his bed, her naked, and he shirtless in his underclothes. Inevitably Thix would begin testing Gerard's limits. He in return, would test hers.
Thix would press her body up against him, run her hands over Gerard's warm lean form, and breathe in the scent of him from beneath the stuffy blanket. When he got hard for her, Thix was allowed to feel and massage him through the thin cloth he wore. He would only undress if she asked him, and it took her practically begging to be given permission to hold his naked cock in her hand.
She could rub her womanhood against his leg, if she did it slowly. Thix had actually squeaked from surprise the one time she'd gotten too carried away, only to have Gerard flip her over onto her back and pin her down. He'd parted her thighs so she couldn't rub them together nor thrust her hips upward.
His strength and weight imprisoning her beneath him as he whispered playful words in her ear. Gerard's hands explored her full trembling body, caressing, squeezing. When she'd tried truly struggling against him Gerard had pinched her nipple hard enough that Thix went stiff at the jolt of intense sensation that ran through her. He'd made sure she was alright after, and she had been, but it did scare Thix just how much power he had over her body. It scared her even more by how much she liked it.
Yet somehow worse than Thix's distressing and newfound capacity for wanton lust, and the way Gerard knew just how to play with her, there were also the tender moments. The sweet moments. They were as fleeting and tense as the others, but somehow stabbed more painfully in her chest. The last night, for example.
Rather than her usual place nestled with her face against Gerard's loins, all the better to keep Thix's intoxicating lust kindled, Gerard had insisted on holding her instead. Her head resting beneath his, strong chest against her back, his arms encircling her pleasantly. It had felt... wrong. Too good. Too nice.
She tried, oh how she tried to just surrender and enjoy the warmth of Gerard's presence, but the fear kept returning to her. She didn't deserve this. She had abandoned her clan. Turned her back on the ways of her ancestors and the will of I'shu and Vorkah. She would close her eyes, and when she awoke Thix would be back in that horrible old man's house in Saskarland. Hungry. Cold. Without hope or joy. Or worse, she would awake in that empty stone cell, awaiting her death.
Eventually, she had gotten a little bit of rest.
Gerard had been very understanding in the morning, and suggested she sleep further into the day. Even going so far as to carry her back to the carriage where the spare blanket and her red cloak, which he folded like a pillow, awaited her. It had been easier to rest there, lulled to a peaceful slumber by the rocking of the carriage as it went along.
Now, thankfully, there was finally something to distract her from all of that.
They would be spending the day and night in the city of Couronne. It was nice to see how Gerard seemed more... relaxed, than he had been before. She hadn't noticed the poise and tension he held to himself, after all she hadn't ever known him another way. Now that he was on his home soil, amongst people who spoke the same tongue, she saw the change.
With enthusiasm he pointed out the sights as they passed by, allowing Thix to peek from behind the curtain for as long as was comfortable to her. The packed dirt road became an oddly smooth stone, meeting and then following a wide river. Soon enough the untamed fields gave way to open stretches of farmland, and soon after little villages that sprouted up in the distance like mushrooms.
"It will be wonderful. I have gone without for too long. A hot bath! A soft bed! Ah, and good food."
Thix glanced at Gerard with bemusement. If the beds thus far had not been soft, and the food not good, what standards was he judging them by?
There were other wagons and carriages joining them on the road now, and beside it on a walking path, even more carts being pulled by horses or mules. The sounds outside slowly grew over time.
People talking, wheels creaking, the sound of clopping hooves. Until at last all of the noises seemed to blend into one single din. Thix couldn't resist and covering her eyes, took a quick peak out the window only to find her mouth parting in awe. It was silly, of course. Thix remembered keenly the capital of her people beneath the earth, and she had seen the great townships of Svalland, but those had been wider more than anything else. Even the fortress of the Svallic giants, carved by her own people long long ago into the very side of a mountain.
None of those though, had been quite so... refined, or the architecture so elaborate and colorful. Houses painted in all sorts of colors stretched on and on, around and behind them, and ahead were great stone walls topped with flying flags and steepled towers. As they passed beneath the arched gate, Thix was astounded by just how tightly packed together, and yet big everything seemed. The buildings seemed to be stacked on top of each other. Rows of glass windows reflecting little glints of sunlight. Brightly adorned boats drifted lazily through a canal nearby, and beside it a path of greenery. Grass. Trees. Flowers. There were crowds of people, humans all milling about, and the roar of activity made it impossible to pick any single sound out.
Despite all of it... Gerard insisted with a grin, that Lumis was even more beautiful. Even grander. Thix found that hard to believe.
As they turned off the main road, it became less crowded. There were so many different kinds of... well, places of human business, apparently. Flamboyant items that appeared to be foodstuffs in all shades of a rainbow decorated the clean glass panes of one establishment, another was serving food to patrons at little tables outside. The clamor of conversation and laughter could be heard from another, she assumed serving hard drink. Another couple of blocks and things changed even more. Thix's eyes widened to take in the array and vibrance of clothes on display. Of such finery, detail, and color that she could hardly believe her eyes. Certainly, her people dyed cloth and leather too, and decorated it with pretty stones and precious metals. Nothing though, as extravagant as what she feasted her eyes upon.
Shortly after they turned upon a smaller street, and stopped in front of a large polished stone façade. Ornate metalwork framed a lavish set of double doors, and polished bronze rails bedecked the set of marble steps up to them. There were words above the entrance, but the script was... odd, and she couldn't make out what it might have said. Was this some sort of palace? She'd never really seen one before. Thix attempted to rein in her expectations as a well-dressed human confidently approached and opened the door with a slight bow.
