Starbright

Kuraduyn was having a wonderful dream. The Ërus Shala Shei, the Great Crystal, was the tallest thing in Felu Shala. It jutted out of the countryside, so immense that the tip of it was sometimes enveloped by the clouds. It could be seen from miles away.

And they were on top of it. It was exhilarating. As they stood on the edge of the point that capped the Great Crystal, they looked down upon Telu Shei, the Sacred City, and marveled at how tiny it looked. The winding streets reminded them of a spider's web, and they were so high up that they couldn't even see the people making their way through them. A cloud was gently approaching from the south, and it was

below

them!

And Lorn was there. He smiled his gentle smile at them, and they couldn't help but kiss him. They fell off of the crystal, wrapped in each other's arms, but they weren't scared. The cloud caught them, soft as a pillow. Lorn was on top of them, his beard tickling their chin, his strong arms wrapped around them, his stiff cock pressing against their thigh...

They were naked now, the two of them, without having to take off their clothes. The cloud was as warm and soft as the finest wool-stuffed bed, and Lorn's arms and his chest and cock were hot and hard. Kuraduyn let him inside, gasped as he filled them up, delighted in the feeling of his body pressed up against theirs. They kissed him again, and he grunted. His cock stiffened inside of them, his heavy balls slapped against their ass one last time, and...

They wriggled underneath him in ecstasy and delight as his thick, hot cum shot deep inside of them, warming them from the inside, and when he kissed them again, they felt as if something was being... Taken out of them. Like they were being drained as they were filled. Lorn laughed a sultry little laugh, and as Kuraduyn looked into his eyes they felt like they were falling. The cloud was gone and they were falling. The city below rushed up to meet them. They closed their eyes, bracing for the end...

--

And then they opened them again. The last rays of the evening sun were peeking in through the window by their bed. Their bed, which was disappointingly empty. They sighed and rubbed their forehead. What an odd dream.

When the town gathered that evening to distribute work for the night, Kuraduyn saw on the list that Lorn had volunteered to check the cage around the Starbrights. It was an easy job, but it was rare that someone volunteered for it. Since the Starbrights were so dangerous, there were few who were willing to go near them. Except Lorn. He had always been brave.

Kuraduyn had never been brave, but they had always been eager to spend as much time with Lorn as possible. They volunteered to go with him. The two of them met on the edge of town after the meeting was adjourned, and being near him made Kuraduyn's heart flutter. He was kind to them - he always had been - but he didn't know how badly they wanted him. There was an easy way to fix that, they knew. Kuraduyn could just... Tell him. But the thought of it made their throat dry and their stomach turn over with nervousness. They had never been able to work up the courage.

As they walked to the grove that held the Starbrights, Kuraduyn found their mind wandering. Specifically, it wandered to Lorn's chest. He wore his robe loose, so that the world could see his hard pectorals and chiseled abs, and...

They blinked. Lorn did not have hard pectorals or chiseled abs. He never had. He was a strong man, but a soft one, and always had been. Where had that thought come from? They shook their head and walked on.

And they, the two of them, walked on. And on. And on. Something was wrong. The Starbright grove was only a mile and a half outside of town, and both Kuraduyn and Lorn had been there before. They both knew the way well, and there was even a dirt path that led right to the grove, but when they followed it that night, they found themselves walking for far too long, and eventually ended up right back where they had started, on the edge of the town.

Neither of them could explain it. The path wasn't straight, but there were no forks in it. They had not turned around while following it, so they could not have possibly ended up going back the way that they came. And yet, there they were.

Puzzled, they set out again... And after an hour of walking, they found themselves right back where they had started. They tried a third time, and Kuraduyn felt an odd, hair-raising chill shoot down their spine as they walked, but when they stopped to investigate, they found nothing... And then after they set off again, they found themselves approaching the village once more.

They started to tell folks around town that something odd was going on. Sala, who had ranged the nearby forests for fifty years, laughed at them for finding themselves lost on a road that led them exactly where they were going, and offered to lead them to the grove herself. With her as a guide, they set off again... And Sala was utterly confounded as the path led them away from the village and then back to it once more.

The same thing happened when Teolan tried to lead them there. And when Balë tried going to the grove alone. Another town meeting was called, and Nonin, the town's Speaker, communed with Konong Shei and Krolosh Shei to discover why the whole town was vexed in this manner. Nonin was old and frail, and could only Speak with the Sheis for moments before the strain made him pass out, but when he awoke, he uttered words that made everyone fearful: "There is a monster in the Starbright grove. A creature. It does not want us to see it there."

--

They were in Telu Shei's bathhouse. They had never

been

to Telu Shei before, much less its famous bathhouse, but in their dream, it was magnificent. The washing room was bigger than the entire common house that Kuraduyn and the rest of the town of Bora Lys lived in, with rows and rows of benches and buckets and sweet-smelling soap and towels, and cool water that rushed in from holes in the wall above. They washed and rinsed themselves among the other bathers, laughing and conversing, and once they were clean, when they moved on to the soaking room...

It was just as grand as the washing room, with three enormous pools of hot, steaming water. But there was nobody here. Nobody but for one person. There was a hole in the great stone roof, and starlight filtered in from it, illuminating Lorn as he stood there, between the pools. He was naked, and the way that the muscles in his chest and arms and stomach moved as he stepped calmly towards them made Kuraduyn's heart race. What made their heart race even more than that, though, was his cock. It was stiff as a rock, and big, and...

"You are not Lorn," said Kuraduyn as he approached them.

"No," he said with a cocky grin. He was wearing Lorn's face, but Lorn had never smiled like that. "But you want me anyway."

He wasn't wrong. Kuraduyn swallowed hard as fear mixed with arousal inside of them.

"Get on your knees."

They did. And they didn't need to be told what to do after that. Not-Lorn's cock loomed large before them. The head of it fit perfectly in their mouth, like it was made for them, and the hot, sticky precum that began to come out as they sucked tasted like the most wonderful thing in the world.

"You will make a good pet," said Lorn as he ran his fingers through their hair. "So eager! Yes, you will be the first."

Kuraduyn didn't know what that meant. All they knew was that they needed to keep sucking Lorn's cock. Not Lorn. They had to remind themselves that it wasn't him. But then his cock throbbed and more precum filled their throat, and the thought abandoned them.

"You are

so

eager," said Lorn, "that when I finish, when your mouth is

filled

with me, you will cum yourself, just from the satisfaction of knowing that you have pleased me."

"That's ridiculous," said Kuraduyn, and because it was a dream, they could say it even with Lorn's cock in their mouth. Not Lorn. But their body was on fire, their skin tingling, every sense alight with sex - the taste of his cock, the smell of his skin, the feel of his hands on their head, the sound of his voice, the sight of his beautiful eyes, looking down at them...

Without warning, he came. Thick cum filled their mouth, and they swallowed, and they shivered and wriggled as their own body exploded with pleasure. He was right. They clutched at themselves, writhing in their orgasm as Lorn filled their stomach, and...

--

They woke up far earlier than normal this time. The sun was still up. They looked down at their sheets, and found that they had made a mess of them. Their head was swimming...

They stumbled to their feet, and found that they could hardly stand. Their legs were wobbly. Looking down at themselves, they saw that their skin was pale and pallid. They were...

Hungry.

Hungrier than they had ever been in their life. Wobbling and off-balance, they left their bedroom, stumbling down the stairs to the pantry of the common house. They opened the door and tore open the first thing they saw - a sack full of crisp, blue apples. They bit into one, the juice running down their chin, swallowed...

It was as if they hadn't eaten anything at all. Even after they had stripped the apple to its core, they found themselves unsatisfied. They had a craving, and they knew that there was only one thing that would fix it. They padded back up the stairs, to the third bedroom on the left.

Lorn was surprised to see them there when they woke him up. "Kura?" he said, wiping the sleep from his eyes. They liked it when he called them that. "What do you need? It's so early. It's still light out..."

Part of them wanted to tell him everything. About the dreams. About how much he meant to them. About the things that they imagined him doing to them as they touched themselves in their bed in the middle of the day. But all that came out was a shaky, "I need you."

He was surprised, when they reached down and groped his cock through his bedclothes, but he let them do it. He said something, then. Something about liking them, too, but never imagining that they wanted him in that way. Kuraduyn could hardly hear him. When they pulled his trousers down, they discovered that his cock wasn't as big as it had been in the dream, but his balls were

bigger

. They wrapped their lips around it.

He came disappointingly fast. After what felt like no time at all, he was moaning their name, and his cock throbbed and filled their mouth with wonderful seed...

And a jolt of fear shot through Kuraduyn when they realized that it wasn't working. They swallowed every drop like they needed it to live, and for all they knew, they did. But it didn't help. Just like the apple, they felt no satisfaction, even after they had drained him entirely and taken every bit of it inside of themselves. Lorn was breathing heavily, saying something about love, but all that Kuraduyn felt was despair.

--

They grew weaker throughout the night. By the time that the sun had fully set and the town had fully risen, they could no longer walk. Their legs were too weak. Lorn had carried them back to their bed, placed them in it gently, and Kuraduyn spent the night somewhere in the space between consciousness and dreams.

People came to visit them: first Lau, who had been trained in medicine at the far-off Rose Collective, in the great city of Belan Telu. She could not make heads or tails of Kuraduyn's sickness. Next came Balë, who was skilled in herb-lore and chemistry. They tried to feed Kuraduyn dozens of things, from lichen to meat to vegetables to fish, but nothing seemed to fill their stomach and make them feel whole again. They only felt weaker throughout the night. Finally, Nonin the old Speaker came. He laid hands on Kuraduyn and Spoke to Vela Shei and Konong Shei, imploring them to work their magic through him and rid them of the ailment that had so affected Kuraduyn. He grunted with the exertion of the magic, and his eyes rolled back in his head, and he passed out once again.

And once he awoke, later in the morning, he sadly informed the town that Kuraduyn was beyond his ability to heal, nor did he know what, exactly, their ailment was. But the Sheis had granted him a piece of knowledge: The monster in the Starbright grove had done this.

--

Lorn had fallen asleep next to Kuraduyn's bed. He had kept watch over them all night, desperate to help them but unsure of how. Kuraduyn thought it was sweet of him. He was a good man. Good man... Their eyes were heavy. The sun was up now, and the light of it through the window was making Kuraduyn sleepy, but they couldn't sleep. Or, maybe, they had been asleep this whole time? It was hard to tell.

"Hello, Kuraduyn."

They blinked. Lorn was standing there, near the window, his body framed by the sunlight. They looked over to the side of the bed. There was Lorn, soft, kind Lorn, asleep with his head on Kuraduyn's bed. Two Lorns. That was impossible. They must have been dreaming.

"That's right," said the Lorn by the window. "This is just a dream. A very

good

dream. He was naked, as always, and his cock was already hard and dripping with precum. The sight of it energized them. The hunger in their belly that had kept them immobile all night... Lessened. They were able to stand. To walk. Suddenly they were in his arms, and they felt safe and protected and loved.

They were falling. Lorn had jumped out the window, into the light of the day. But Kuraduyn wasn't scared. Lorn spread his wings, and they

flew

.

-~o~-

Pelan had spent eight years at the Rose Collective, learning all sorts of wonderful things. She knew that the world revolved around the Sun, and could demonstrate proof of it with just a telescope and some mathematics. She could mix an acid that would dissolve even gold, and then distill the gold back out of it once it was dissolved. She knew how to grow molds that would cure most minor ailments and even some major ones. She could perform sorceries up to the Fourth Breaking, and was a competent enough Speaker to perform minor feats of god-magic.

But she had never learned how to

hunt

. Or how to forage. She could identify berries and plants that were poisonous, but she wasn't any better than any other city-born person at finding edible flora in enough abundance to keep herself alive on the road, and even though she was perfectly comfortable eating meat, the thought of actually killing, skinning, cleaning, and cooking an animal made her queasy.

Because of this, when she woke up one evening to find that an animal had torn into her traveling bag and stolen all of the food that she had gotten back in Anu Tolm, it meant that she soon found herself very hungry indeed. It only took an hour of walking on nothing but some slighly-too-soft blueberries she'd managed to find on the side of the road and a magnificently botched attempt at catching a fish before she resolved to try to find a village.

And it seemed that luck was on her side that night. She was still stumbling away from the river, wringing out her hair and shivering in her soaking robes when she encountered a fork in the road. There was a signpost planted right in the middle of it.

Kolan Aun, three days on foot

, said the sign that pointed towards the right fork.

Kolan Aun was where she was headed - she had heard that there was a Speaker of incredible skill living there, and wanted very much to meet them. The other sign said, though,

Bora Lys, one hour on foot

. She had never heard of Bora Lys, despite her rather intensive study of the histories of this part of Felu Shala, which meant that it was probably very small and insignificant, but even a small town would likely have a farm or two and some food to spare.

She was emboldened when, after taking the left fork and walking for the better part of an hour, she started to notice signs of civilization. The thick, untamed forest that covered most of Felu Shala began to give way to more regular lines of trees with

kili

moss growing on them. Past that, the trees began to thin out even further, and suddenly there were buildings: first supply sheds for the farms that she had just passed through, then workshops, and then, finally, she spotted a large, three-story stone-and-concrete house sitting beside a small river.

She hurried up to it and eagerly knocked on the door. There was a sound of hurried footsteps, and very quickly she was greeted by a tall, stocky person with a big blue beard and a robe that was loose and open, revealing a rather hairy chest. Their eyes were sullen and bagged, as if they hadn't slept in a long time.

"Hello!" they said excitedly. "Please, come in! We have been waiting for you!"

"Have you, now?" said Pelan, but the person was already walking inside the house, gesturing for them to follow. It was an odd way to be greeted for sure. Perhaps this person thought that Pelan was someone else. It didn't matter though, because... There was breakfast cooking in there. She could smell it even from the doorstep - fried eggs and fresh-baked bread. Her stomach grumbled, and her nose compelled her to come inside.

"I am called Lorn," said the bearded person as they led Pelan through a door in the back of the entry room, hardly even giving her time to slip off her shoes. The door opened up into a dining hall that was quite large, given the size of the house. It must have taken up at least half of the first floor. Inside, there were five long tables arranged in a square with the seats facing inwards, towards the center of the square, where there was a raised dais of smooth stone. Most of the seats were occupied, which meant that there were perhaps four dozen people in the room. She realized that if this was the town's only common house (and she certainly hadn't seen any others around) she was likely looking at the entire population of the village.

They ranged in age from little children, some who were too young to walk yet, to the wizened elder in one corner of the square whose face was wrinkled and spotted, but one thing that they all had in common was their demeanor. None of them, even the children, wore a smile on their face, and there was a distinct lack of conversation in the room. When she stepped inside, every single person turned to look at her. She was struck by their faces. All of them looked, like Lorn, as if they had not gotten nearly enough sleep recently. Many of them also looked very puzzled, until Lorn clapped her on the shoulder and said, to the room, "Everyone, our Knight has arrived!"

"Your what now?" said Pelan.

"They don't look like a Knight," said a thin, gangly person in the front of the room, casting a suspicious eye on her. "Aren't they supposed to carry swords?"

"And don't they have flowers on their armor?" said another person.

"They're supposed to

have

armor," said a third. "All that this person has is dirty old robes."

"Dirty?" said Pelan. "I've been on the road for a week. Perhaps you ought to tell me who you think that I am, because I fear that you may be mistaking me for someone I'm not."

That made Lorn frown. "Are you

not

the Knight of the Chrysanthemum that we sent for? We do not get many visitors here, so I assumed..."

"I'm afraid not. I'm just a wanderer with a wide range of skills and a very empty stomach. May I have some food?"

"Oh..." Lorn's face fell. He wasn't alone. Most of the occupants of the room seemed to immediately lose interest in her, and went back to listlessly eating their breakfasts. "I thought... Well, no matter. I'm sure that our Knight will arrive soon. It has been a week now, and it's said that the Knights move quickly. Um. Breakfast. Yes, certainly. Please, take a seat. All who come in peace are welcome here." That was a traditional greeting for travelers, just something that you said, when a stranger showed up at your door. "I'll go fetch you a plate."