Annie and the Sorceress
The low mound of earth wasn't a grave, Annie told herself. No matter what it looked like. She sat cross-legged on the leaf litter in amongst the trees, comfortable in her shapeless robe even with the autumn beginning to make its chill felt in the air. Annie busied her hands with pretty fallen leaves and tried not to sound sad.
"You'd like her," she said to the mound. "I mean, I think you'd like her as much as you like anyone. She swears you'll be up and around again come springtime. That'll make me very happy, to see you again. I know you don't like being inside places, but you can live here, in this little wood. Doing--" Annie shrugged. "Doing woods girl stuff, I guess. We're freed now, by the way. Not pleasure slaves any more. I mean, it was fun while it lasted, but she really likes cocks better than cunts, and frankly, I don't blame her. So I'm her lady-in-waiting now, and drawing a wage." Annie thought for a minute. "We still sleep together, though. And bathe together. And we've fingered each other most days. So, I think I'm more of a hireling-with-benefits? Anyway, everything will be good when you're all better. So rest now."
Annie patted the heaped up dirt where they'd buried (no,
planted
) Muffin and got to her feet. Amqueth's tower loomed over the wood from its place atop the small rocky cliffs that dominated the hollow of the lakeside, and Annie picked her way by degrees over uneven footing until she came to the low outbuildings that clustered at the hill's base. She checked in on Drucius, Amqueth's elderly but infinitely patient donkey, in his little barn before starting up the perilous cliffside stairway that was the only way in and out of the tower from the ground.
The outside door was heavy, iron-studded hardwood that was never locked -- at least, not by anything so ordinary as a lock and key -- but Annie still had to put her whole body into the effort to move it. Leaving her woven rope sandals in the entryway, she padded up the inside stairs all the way up to the tower's top floor.
Amqueth sat in the center of a smooth-polished stone slab, which took up most of the laboratory room, which in turn took up most of the top floor of the tower.Annie peeked in through the archway from the stairs and waited. She'd learned early on that the sorceress was not to be disturbed when she was working, even if it looked like she was only sitting in meditation.
Annie could definitely see something happening now, though; the slab was covered in dozens of shiny metal beads, all rolling about by themselves as if someone was invisibly titling the slab back and forth. They swirled around Amqueth in singles and bunches, forming patterns and unforming them just as quickly. She shied back to the stairs and sat. It didn't seem like the sort of magic it was harmful to be near, but like any good peasant she preferred to take no chances.
Eventually, the hiss anc click of the rolling beads subsided, and even before Annie could get up and look in again, Amqueth called her in.
"How may I attend you, Mistress?" Annie asked.
"You may, first of all, not refer to me as 'Mistress,'" Amqueth said. "It's strange enough having you around."
"Do I not please you?" Annie said.
"You know very well how much you please me, you little brat. I never planned to have a pleasure slave. I don't even care for the company of women, generally. But in the short time you've been here, I've come to value your skills very highly." Amqueth stood in the archway, towering over Annie even more than the difference in their heights by being one step above her.
"Shall I use those skills now, Ma'am?" Annie said, idly plucking at the lacings on her bodice. (She hadn't learned that particular trick from Star. Even as a girl she knew the power of the implied promise of a flash of cleavage.)
Amqueth raised one eyebrow in a way Annie could never quite imitate. "The correct answer would be 'No, I need to find a way to refill my coffers after foolishly spending a fortune on a sick dryad and the randiest slut in the kingdom,' but instead I think you should accompany me down to the spring and bathe me."
Below the three stories of the tower, Amqueth's lair continued into a donjon cut into natural caverns descending into the cliffs. At its lowest point, they were filled by a hot spring, which the sorceress had explained kept the whole tower warm, if humid, through winter.
Annie picked up a rushlight on the way down, not fully trusting the faint glow of whatever witchery Amqueth used to hold back the absolute blackness in the caves. Annie descended the steps hewn into the rock ahead of the sorceress, then set her light in a sconce before tugging at her bodice lacings more meaningfully this time. Stepping out of the puddle of her dress, she assited Amqueth in escaping her casual robes. The two women stood facing each other for a moment, dressed only in breechcloths and open need. The oily yellow flame of the burning rushes, and the unearthly blue-green glow of the magic stones scattered around the chamber barely gave enough light to avoid stumbling, and from below and behind left Amqueth's spare, tall frame only a series of illuminated curves and angles picked out against the gloom. Glancing down at herself, she looked like a ghostly figure, as well.
She unwound the strips of cloth that remained to her, and reached for Amqueth's. Annie carefully put their clothes aside, and waded out after Amqueth into the largest of the pools. There were dishes of sweetsoap and rough cloths for scrubbing, but neither of them moved towards the supplies. There was only the sound of the water swirling around their legs, and then the muffled, urgent kissing.
They both knelt, used to each others rhythms by now, and Annie pushed Amqueth's knees apart, caressing her thighs as they wrestled tongues. A touch at the sorceress' sparse, silky bush was rewarded with a gasp and then she fell heavily backwards, sitting down hard on the stone floor of the pool pulling Annie with her.
Annie didn't waste much time with preliminaries -- clearly the boss lady had some pent-up fires that needed quenching -- and she applied a firm fast circular rub to the source of the problem. Amqueth's hands were occupied keeping her from falling all the way back down, and so Annie had free reign to explore.
The kiss broke again. "Yes, please, hurry," Amqueth bit out the words as Annie worked one, then two fingers into the slickness the warm waters had not managed to dilute, making come-hither motions against the soft shelf inside. Amqueth's hips began to move in response, bucking against her as her jaw locked open and non-words began pouring out of her. The older woman's cunt clamped down tightly and repeatedly, impressing Annie with the surprising strength, before Amqueth stiffened, shuddered, and slumped.
