Unconquered

I stood atop the highest roof of the tallest building on the back of an immense, town-sized horse that was thundering in a panicked terror straight towards the edge of an immense canyon, facing down a collection of bandits and brigands, and yet, the thing that I was most struck by was the fact that I had met my first...

husband

.

He was dressed in a green tunic with golden buttons, with skintight green leggings, a green cape, a green tri-pointed hat, and a finally, a green domino mask that covered his eyes and a good part of his nose. He held in one white gloved hand an elegantly tipped rapier, the other gloved hand was empty, having just tossed me a rose. A rose that I was still gaping at. I had been told that, being the Unconquered, I would be magically wed to five Lunars -- one for each of the five moons that hung over our world. Each would aid me in my quest. As the Unconquered, it was my duty to shatter the chains of evil and topple the thrones of wicked kings.

But I hadn't

really

thought that I would be married to a man.

I mean, Lunar Wives. Yes, my first Lunar 'wife' had been somewhere between male and female. And yes, the third was a lesbian. But still. They had been...well...

You know.

Not a man.

But while I processed this, the red-bandana clad bandits laughed. Their leader cracked his knuckles. "If it isn't the Rose himself. You can call this twig the Unconquered, but I won't buy it." He said, then stuck his fingers between his lips and blew a fierce whistle. Around him, his mortal goons hefted their weapons. But then a whistling crack sounded and a white glad, red bandanned woman sprang up onto the edge of the roof. Her hair was white, her skin was white, and her arms were clad in thick banded ropes of roiling flames. She looked at her partner with cold disdain.

"Do you need some help with thi-" she stopped, seeing the Rose of Versal. "You!"

"Hello my beautiful Icefire," the Rose said, tilting his head forward. "I hope to once more match wits. And blades. With you."

"You

slept

with him?" the first Infused Knight asked. He was big and burly and as he spoke, roiling waves of droplets flowed around him -- tiny flecks of gemstone like water, catching the light of the midday sun.

"He...shut up!" Icefire snapped, then kicked her leg out -- sending a ball of flames roiling straight towards the Rose. The Rose casually swept his rapier out, slicing the flame ball in half and springing through it with a 'hah!'

I grinned. At least my husband had taste!

My entire focus, then, narrowed down on the other red bandannas. The mortals rushed forward first, their master lagging behind, ice flowing and crackling over his body like a skein of liquid mercury. But I wasn't a rank amateur anymore. The first spear thrust towards my belly and I snatched it out of the shocked mortal's hands, swung, and bowled the entire group over the side of the roof and into a string of hay bales that were perched on the road below the roof. One did end up landing on a trough of water, but still, it worked to keep him alive. I twirled the spear in my hands, creating a whirling barrier as the Infused leader of the bandits kicked out his leg. Ice shards shot towards my head, shattering against the spear. Each impact rocked the spear against my red palms as I twirled it more and more, then gripped it and began to bat the larger icicles away.

"Come on, you little shitstain," the Infused man snarled.

"If she's Icefire, are you Fire Ice?" I asked, then held my palms flat against my spear, catching a jagged icicle against the center, arresting its momentum without shattering it. It hung in the air as I whacked the tip with the butt of my spear, flipping it around so I could deliver a perfect heel kick to the broad base, sending it rocketing straight back at the Infused Knight. His eyes widened and he punched his arms together, ice flowing up from his chest, flattening out into a circular shield. The icicle crunched into the shield and before he could lower his arms, I sprinted forward and slammed my elbow into the icicle, driving it in deeper.

The man's ice armor exploded off him as he was sent flying back towards the edge of the roof. He punched his hand into the thatch to arrest his spin. His eyes were wide as he snapped his head up. He panted. "The name's Frostburn," he growled.

"I was close," I said, then glanced over -- to see that Icefire and the Rose had matched blades: Rose's rapier flashed and clattered against a pair of blazing knives made of pure, glowing white flames which bust from Icefire's knuckles like khatars. I looked back at Frostburn, grinning at him. "Ready to give up?"

"Not even close," he snarled, then lifted his arm out of the thatch. The roof underneath me splintered and exploded as I realized he hadn't been keeping his hand down for balance -- he had created a chain of ice, a chain of ice that ripped through the roof and slammed into my legs, sending me flying into the air. The chain wrapped around my gut and Frostburn swept his other arm down, jerking the chain down and sending a chaotic sweep through the whole chain, to send me rocketing down into the spire of one of the buildings on the lower left flank of the immense horse's haunch. I struck like a meteorite and golden light flared around me as I instinctively protected myself from the impact.

It still...

fucking

hurt. I groaned as splinters rained down around me and realized, to my horror, that I had landed in a yeilding mash. I yelped and scrambled to my feet, then realized that I was not soaked in gore, but rather, in leafy greens. I was in a now ruined shop -- and the man who had owned it, who was cowering in the corner, gaped at me. "M-My cabbages!" he whimpered.

"Oh, sor-" I started.

Then the chain, still wrapped around my chest, yanked me through the wall.

I emerged from the flying haze of splinters -- had a few seconds of air time -- then slammed, spine first, into the heel of Frostburn's foot. My back twisted and I grunted as I felt a crackling buzz of pain shoot through me. My eyes closed and I gritted my teeth -- then brought my elbow slamming down onto the chains. They shattered and I landed with a paint, golden flames flickering around my knuckles. Frostburn, seeing the beginning flare of my anima, blinked.

I turned to face him. The golden flames that flickered along my knuckles began to shimmer along my arms, curling along my shoulders as I breathed in, slowly.

"Oh...

fuck

," Frostburn whispered.

I headbutted him.

Hard.

The impact stopped time, froze the air, and silenced the roar of battle around us. The contact dragged out in the singular moment of violence -- and then I pushed forward and the air around us roared and rippled as wind whipped outwards. The thatching the roof compressed, then exploded away from us, leaving the skeletal roof supports as the only thing standing, while Frostburn smashed into the central spine of the roof, cracking it in half, and plunging him down into the stone tile floor of the building we had been fighting on. Dust and debris plumed around him and as I shook my shoulders and my head and tried to get my eyes to both focus in the same direction, I noticed that the flame khatars of Icefire had vanished. Blown out, like candles before lovemaking.

Icefire looked down at her hands. Then she looked up at the Rose. The Rose smirked at her, then smashed the hilt of his rapier into her temple. Icefire staggered, stumbled, then fell down, landing right beside her comrade in arms.

"That's not very gentlemanly," I said, a bit dazedly.

"Ah, to the contrary, my Unconquered husband," the Rose said, grinning at me behind his mask. "To treat her as anything but a most respected enemy would be the height of chauvinism and rudeness. Now! We have a town to save. I shall put out the tail -- you must calm the dire horse before she plunged over that cliff, yonder!" He reached into his tunic, and tossed me what seemed to be a strange, blunt tipped crossbow, without a bolt in it and a curiously bulbous hilt. "Now, I must away!"

And with that, he turned and sprang from the side of the roof. A swirling storm of rose petals flared around his thighs and feet, seeming to carry him through the air to the very end of the dire horse.

"What a guy," I whispered, then looked down at the strange crossbow-thing he had given me. "Uh...not sure what this is..." I pulled the trigger experimentally and the front of the crossbow exploded with a geyser of steam -- a cloud that blew away in the whipping wind of the dire horse's gallop. My eyes widened as I saw that it had fired a thick harpoon into the roof strut I was standing on, and that harpoon was connected to the gun by a hawser of rope. "A kind of...hooking...shooter thing!"

I found that if I touched a small lever on the side of the hooking shooter, it would retract the grappling hook into the weapon, and it would be ready to fire again. I took a deep breath, backed up, then sprinted for the edge of the roof. Golden light flared around me as I sprang into the air -- sailing up and above the graceful sweep of the dire horse's neck. As I cleared the saddle horn of the village, the villagers who had gathered there for the defensiveness of the position all gaped up at me. I heard their cheering filling the air. "Ia! Ia! Ia!"

But then I was clearing the edge of the village proper.

I saw that the horse had a massive bit and bridle, connected to a harness and a series of winches, winches that then connected to a large building on the saddlehorn. There, I was sure, the villagers could normally control their immense horse. But I needed to get to his ears. And so, as I fell past what seemed to be a hundred feet of hot, sweaty brown furred neck, I lifted the hooking shooter and fired. The grappling hook arced upwards, caught onto the edge of the horse's bridle, and then drew taut.

I waited for my swing to begin, then triggered the retraction -- combining the sweeping motion with the retraction to fling me back upwards. I released the shooter's handle, swept past the horse's head, and landed nimbly on the white star that splayed acorss the horse's forehead. I saw that there was a small platform constructed here, a lean-too like building. Sitting in the middle of it, with her head ducked between her thighs, was a girl. She looked like she might have been eleven years old, and was dressed in a complex set of robes, with a white top, a red gown, and a collection of complex beads draped around her shoulders. Tears streaked her cheeks and she was clutching to her raven black hair with tight, panicked fingers.

I scrambled up to the side of the lean too, finding it did an admirable job of blocking the intense wind that roared by.

"Hey!" I said.

The girl lifted her head, her eyes brimming with tears. "W-W...We're all going to die and Shimmatonen is gonna die, and there's nothing I can d...do about it!" She wailed.

I smiled at her. "Sure there is," I said, trying to fill my voice with confidence. I reached in and took her shoulder, squeezing it. "What's your name?"

"Uma," she said, shyly.

"Well, Uma," I said. "My husband is putting out Shimmatonen's tail right now -- and once it's out, she's going to need you to calm her down. And I know you can do it." I grinned. "And the Unconquered is never wrong."

I focused as I said that -- flaring my anima. Golden flames roiled along my body, then coalesced into a shining, golden set of armor, a halo forming around my head as my diamond soulgem shone with an inner fire. Uma's eyes widened and her mouth opened into a perfect O of purest shock. Then her mouth closed and her small hands tightened into fists. She stood, her eyes closed. "I can do it, Unconquered!" She said, seriously. "Just...I need a drummer -- the...the bandits scared Kimo off."

I nodded, then began to drum my palms against the wooden platform. I didn't know the beat, but soon, Uma was singing softly. She spoke a language I didn't recognize -- but the song's tune reached me through the thundering sound of hooves and the bellow-like panting of Shimmatonen's immense lungs. I altered my drumming to match Uma, and soon, Uma's song was piercing and high, singing a clarion call that I was sure could be heard all the way back to Samsara.

Ahead of us, the canyon yawed.

And Shimmatonen started to go

faster

.

I drummed a bit more insistently, my eyes widening as Uma sang louder and more fiercely, her hands tightening. I could see the whites of her knuckles. I was so tempted to ask her what the plan was as Shimmatonen rushed faster and faster, the wind becoming a howling scream that was now one with Uma's piercing voice.

The canyon looked like a hideous black mouth, with jagged edges to devour us whole.

Shimmatonen's haunches tensed. Even though I stood on the head, I could

feel

the tightening of immense muscles. It was transmitted through Shimmatonen's hide and through the creaking and groaning sounds of the buildings of her city. And then the entire world bucked beneath us. My stomach crawled up my mouth as Uma sang a single, clear note -- and we sailed into the air. The world was nothing but a roaring in my ears, a wooshing sound, and my drumming faltered as I saw the canyon beneath us sweeping by, vanishing into darkness below us.

The front hooves of the immense dire horse

slammed

into snow and trees. Splinters flew into the air and an avalanch of debris went flying. But her hind hooves landed as well and Shimmatonen kept trotting forward for another mile or two before, at last, she slowed, then stopped, panting heavily.

Uma let the note laps. She sagged down onto her rump. "Good girl," she whispered, patting the hide of her horse. "Good girl."

Shimmatonen whickered -- loudly enough that it made my bones buzz.

***

"The Avatar Gang has never been this bold before! If there was a proper Unconquered...well!" King Carmisan shook his head as he glared down at his prisoners. I smiled, shyly, then was almost bowled over by Carmisan's smack against my back as he boomed out: "But now there is one! And you set them to rights, you and that Rose of Versail!" He shook his head slightly. "I wish that that fellow would stick around to be thanked for his heroics!"

Me and my Lunars -- well, the Lunars who were currently

sticking around --

stood beside Carmisan and his wife, the Queen Vax, at the head of the largest building on the back of the horse Shimmatonen. The roof had been repaired with shocking speed by the teams of workers that Carmisan had ordered about, and even now, a banquet was being laid out for the lot of us by the citizenry. Hunters, who had rappelled off the side of the immense dire horse, were already bringing back venison and dire vole meat for the supper, while women and men were busy cooking up fruits and vegetables and great bowls of rice. The smell, which drifted up from the left flank of the dire horse, was enough to drive me

wild

.

Almost as much as the fact that the Rose of Versail had, it seemed, put the horse's tail out...and then just

left

.

Without even leaving behind a note!

I shook my head. "I wish they'd stick around too, King Carmisan," I said. "They were my Lunar."

"Wait, we can just leave?" Ceaith asked, grinning at me -- before she was elbowed by a mortified looking Chirp.

"She didn't mean that!" Chirp squeaked.

Carmisan boomed out a laugh that nearly shook the roof off. Everything King Carmisan did seemed to be as huge as possible. He topped seven feet in height, and all of it was either muscle or fat. By comparison, his wife was short and...well...what was the polite term to use when referring to another man's wife? Platonically stacked? In that I could tell, intellectually, that she was a gorgeous woman. But. I wasn't about to. I mean. I could

think

about it. Right? I mean. A little? Carmisan, fortunately, couldn't read minds. Instead, he slapped my back. "Five wives! I don't know how you do it! But I'm sure being an Unconquered gives you some advantages."

"Less than you'd think," Ceaith said, her tail twitching.

"Ceaith!" Chirp put their hands over their mouth.

Carmisan laughed uproariously, his hand going to his immense belly. "Oh, but she is a firespitter! You know what I say about firespitters!" He laughed. "Better you than me!" He shook my shoulder and almost twisted my arm off with even that casual gesture. "Ah yes! Yes! My three perfect, stupendous, fertile children!" He said as the doors opened and a trio of youths entered. Well. I say youths. The youngest was about my age, and the rest were only a few months or years older than the others. The oldest was a tall, willowy man who looked as if he had inherited his father's height and his mother's weight. The middle was the inverse: A man who had inherited his father's muscles and his mother's height, and looked as if he could twist me in half with his bare hands. And finally...

The most lovely woman I had ever seen since Ceaith and Xora.

She was dressed in a flowing, white silk kimono, and her skin was milky pale and covered with a constellation of shimmering freckles. Her eyes were brilliant green, like a cat's, and her hair was the most immense, flowing, curly mane of hair since Ceaith's. But where Ceaith's hair was brown and bunched atop her head, this woman's hair flowed down her back like a waterfall and was the exact hue of water in the midst of sunset, when it looked like pure golden flames. She smiled at me, shyly, and I realized something.

I was intensely, irrevocably, insanely in love with her.

Which was...

My eyes flicked to her forehead. She had no soulgem. But then again, most of the people of this village didn't have soulgems. But. What? I blinked as Carmisan's words finally penetrated: "Wait, did you say fertile?"

"Of course!" he said, then pushed me forward. "The Unconquered, being as you are, deserves a reward. What better reward than one of my children. They're all beautiful and skilled in the art of love. They better be, considering the example they have! Ha ha!" He laughed. "And if you so happen to leave a child in them, all the better!"

I blinked several thousand times a second as Carmisan finished by parking me before his daughter, who blushed and smiled demurely at me. My heart hammered and my voice actually squeaked as I said: "H...Hey. Hi. What's your...hello. Name! I mean. Hi." I coughed. "Ember! My name is Ember. I'm the, uh, th...the Unconquered."

She blushed, then lifted up a fan, snapping it open to conceal her face. Her eyes glittered above the edge of it as she hid whatever emotion she had. But her voice was coy and playful. "Jaquline D'Augerie," she said, her voice a soft croon. "And might I say, you're a very strapping Unconquered. Not that I have many means of comparison." Her other hand reached out, her finger teasing along my chest. My ears heated and I stammered.

"W-Well, uh...thanks!" I nodded.

"Do you want to fuck me?" She grinned.

"Excellent!" Carmisan bellowed. "Majordomo! Ready a bed for my daughter's breeding!" He clapped his hands twice.

"I didn't- I..." I spluttered. "I'm married!"

"Yeah," Ceaith called out. "We should get to fuck her first." She licked her lips.

"Sorry, honey." Jaquline snapped her fan shut, revealing the most sultry, lustful smirk I had ever seen on a woman. It was almost...Goat-esque. Save that she was a gorgeous, redheaded woman and not my ugly old sifu. And that made a

world

of difference, due to me being incredibly shallow. Her finger tipped my chin back as she looked up into my eyes. "I don't swing towards women."

"All mortals say that," Ceaith purred.

Jaquline laughed, her voice tinkling soft. "Come on!" She took my wrist.

"W-Wait!" I stammered, but I was already being dragged forward. "Banquet? Also, uh, this is weird? Also, uh-"