Pleasure

Your fingers curl, pulling you up and over the final edge. An offered hand and a sturdy tug and both of you alight upon the clifftop. The journey has been long and bloody, as have been your wounds, but every step forward has led you to this forsaken place. A castle crowns the mountain, carved out of the peak at odd angles, sharp and menacing. Fires, thick with black smoke, burn along every parapet. Its portcullis hangs open, barbed tips poised ominously far above your heads. There is no guard. There is no need. Only fools would enter here. You look back at the lands below. The fields and hills, once verdant, are scorched and scarred. They are strewn with bones and blood—most of it Giant, some of it your own. In the far distance, you see a little spire of brick and stone, the wings of its crest broken, its brilliant banner in rags. That was where you first emerged from the underground. You vow never to go back. After today, you will live aboveground or you will be dead. The castle's foyer is perfunctory, a mere collection of spiraling staircases, some that go out into the wings, some that go down into the mountain. One goes up. That is the stair you choose. It is tall and tiresome, but it leads you where you want to go. You try not to look at each other as you make this final climb. You are afraid that, in seeing the other's fear, you will lose your nerve. You keep your eyes straight ahead. Firelight plays along the walls and flagstone floor of the vast throne room, cast by more than a dozen suspended braziers. Unlike those outside, these emit no smoke: their light is red, but clean. The space is further illuminated by a spread of blue-and-gold stained-glass windows, each depicting a distinct constellation from the sky above—reassuringly familiar companions from your many nights spent out in the wild. The throne itself stands along the far center wall, atop a wide dais at the pinnacle of a stepped pyramid of more stairs. It is angular and cruel, much like the visage of the castle itself, but no more so than its occupant. As the legend goes, every hundred generations a small one is born among the Giants. From what you can see of her across the room, the descriptor of small does not apply. Blodred the Giant King is easily nine feet tall and broad as a small house. She wears a long skirt of pleated black fabric, covering her from belt to ankles, but her chest is naked save a cascade of jewelry, ropes of copper and silver and even finer metals, set with every cut and color of precious stone. All that finery does nothing to hide the craggy, endless muscles of her body, as if all the power of a Giant had been compressed into her chiseled frame. She stands as you approach the center of the room. Gray eyes flash under thick black brows. Her lips contort into a wicked smile over a chin that could cut glass. "Welcome, heroes," she says. It is not a welcome. What do you do? +++ It all happens in a matter of seconds. Chain the Shield-Maiden leans in and whispers to her sword. It is a broad and pretty thing, black as obsidian and inscribed with faintly-glowing lines of green, a pleasing cohort to her pale blue hand. "Fan, javelin," says the Shield-Maiden. "Yes, my wielder," the weapon replies. Its voice is inorganically musical, mere dulcet vibrations in the air. It ratchets and reforms, blade shrinking, haft lengthening, stretching out to perfectly aerodynamic proportions. Noura the Battle Princess hovers her fingers over the weapon as it changes. Her own hands, once soft and yellow-gold, are callused and stained with soot, much like the lands outside. She is a reflection of her people in their most desperate hour. "Light, guide thy way," says the Battle Princess. Wisps of searing white wrap themselves around the javelin as its form settles and then disappear, leaving the weapon no less black, but causing its lines of green to jump and spark like fire. Chain takes aim and hurls her weapon. Guided on rails of light, its arc is true. It soars across the throne room, dead on target, intent on burying itself between the Giant King's eyes. She catches it. With a lazy motion, like swatting a fly, Blodred snatches the javelin from the air, its point inches from her crooked nose. She gives it a slight shake and there, where a moment ago there was a weapon, now there is a person—or the simulacrum of one. Her skin is the same glassy black as the weapon's and her lithe form is etched with those same green lines, though all but all of the glow has gone out of them. Her green-black eyes are panicked and her lips curl in a grimace of fear as she writhes, caught around the neck, tossing and turning within the Giant King's unbreakable grip. "Fantasmagoria, my sword," the Giant King commands. The weapon's body goes slack. "Yes, my wielder," she replies. It is a slow, grinding change. Her legs knit together, widening and flattening into a mammoth blade. Her arms splay out and then bent back upon themselves, twisting into a cruel cross guard. Her face thins and stretches up until it is barely recognizable as anything other than a grip for the Giant King's two hands. Blodred smiles, seizing the completed blade and lifting it above her head, casting a shadow so long that it falls across the Shield Maiden and the Battle Princess, dropping their horrified faces into shadow. But what happens next is not what they expect. The Giant King turns the sword over in her hands, point to the earth, and thrusts it down, sundering the dais of her throne and sinking the black blade halfway into the marble. She sighs, as if a great weight has been lifted from her shoulders, and steps forward, descending halfway down the steps and taking a seat, legs spread comfortably wide, offering up a tantalizing stretch of thickly-muscled thighs and a hint of the dark delta beneath her skirt. "Now that we have that out of the way," she says, "may we talk?" "Talk?" Noura gasps. "You are the Giant King, the scourge that brings ten thousand years of darkness to our fair land. It is my sworn and sacred duty to defeat you. What could we possibly have to talk about?" Blodred licks her lips and flashes her fanged teeth. It would be wrong to call it a smile. There is too much hunger in it. "You Golden Folk are so sure of yourselves," she says, her tone mirthless. "So certain of your prophecies and your destinies. But how do you know? Have you seen the future? You have left a trail of blood and bones nearly as long as I have in your sacred quest to sever my head from my neck. Are you really so confident that your path is righteous?" Chain says nothing, but slips her shield off her back and onto her arm, holding it forth defensively and bending her knees, ready to fight. She may not have a weapon, but she's gotten them out of worse scrapes than this with less in her favor. "Save your strength, Child of the Blue," says the Giant King. "You'll never reach the sword in time. I could squeeze the life out of you with my two hands, but that would be such a waste when we have so much to offer each other." Blodred opens her hands, showing the Shield-Maiden her palms. It is a gesture of surrender, but it is impossible not to notice just how large and strong they are, just how easily she could grasp Chain's head between them and grind her skull to dust. Still, she doesn't lower her shield. Strands of light begin to gather around the Battle Princess's fingertips—she doesn't have much in the way of offensive magic, but she can buy the Shield-Maiden time. "Fine, then," grumbles the Giant King. "Proof." She reaches up to her forehead and detaches a golden bauble from her headpiece. With a grandiose twirl of her wrist, she lets it fall. It bounces down the steps, each strike of metal against stone heavier than it has any reason to be, booming like a gong, and then it rolls, stopping its forward progress ever nearer to the pair only when it slips into a little depression at the direct center of the throne room. It wobbles, circling the rim, and finally drops down with a soft click. Motes of violet light burst forth from the little orb like a geyser, filling the air in a fog of brilliant purple. They swirl and coalesce, darting and dimming, brimming and brightening, a cacophony of silent motion and untraceable patterns. Only the patterns aren't untraceable for long. The Shield-Maiden and the Battle Princess, their bodies taut and ready to fight, visibly relax as it becomes clear that this is not an attack, but a gift: a vision of the future. Even in monochrome, the images are so lifelike—vast and three-dimensional, seemingly much larger than the space they have to fill—that it isn't hard to find familiar signs and landmarks. There, the cities of the Golden Folk, towers adorned with their winged crest, reaching higher than ever in Noura's memory. There, the roving villages of the Children of the Blue, ever shifting through the forest as they tend to the needs of the land. There, out in the wastes and far from harm, the Giants, celebrating a child born from a newly fallen star. But the vision changes. As the Golden towers grow more plentiful and reach ever higher, the borders of the forests and the wastes alike are pushed ever inward. A great hunt begins. The Giants give brutal reprisal, but it is not enough. The Golden Folk have grown too numerous, their resources too vast. Soon, there are no more Giants. Falling stars are plucked out of the sky, fuel for the Golden Folk's engines of progress. The forests dwindle. The Children of the Blue escape to the ocean, but they do not keep their freedom long. They are rounded up and given new purpose: endless labor, to lift the winged crest to the stars. Soon, there are no more Giants. Their subtle magic is lost forever, but the Golden Folk have no more need for growing things. The cities expand. The Golden Folk, once one people, become many nations. The many nations do as many nations will. War follows. The cities burn. The vision pulls in close. A final, terrible machine. A final act of vengeance. The Golden Folk pull down the moon from the sky—and then the Golden Folk are no more. A million motes of violet light wink out one by one as they recede into the bauble, leaving a final image lingering in the minds of those who have witnessed its grave message: a planet without a moon, scorched and scarred, empty of all life, orbiting listlessly around its sun. "We kill the world," whispers Noura. "No," scoffs Blodred. "The world will go on long after you are gone. But you do kill us. And then you kill yourselves." The Giant King stands and descends the remaining stairs, striding without hurry across the throne room to retrieve her bauble and place it back in her crown of golden beads. This brings her so close to the Battle Princess and the Shield-Maiden that they can smell her musk—nothing so vile as they might have imagined, brimstone and sulfur or meat and blood—but a subtle perfume, something melancholy and nostalgic, a flower blooming in the desert. She stands, looming over them, the smallest of all the Giants but still nearly twice their size. Her oiled chest glimmers in the firelight, possessed of a deeper luster than all the sparkling metals and gemstones that dangle off of her. For a moment, they forget that they are enemies. Chain and Noura alike find themselves wishing that she would reach out and touch them with those powerful hands, even if it meant their death. The Shield-Maiden lifts a trembling hand towards the Giant King and Blodred chuckles, breaking the spell. Chain takes three steps back, shield raised high, taking Noura by the arm and pulling her along. Noura glances at her companion, sharing her unexpressed fear and another, deeper, exhilarating terror. Chain slips her hand down into Noura's and their fingers entwine. "What does any of that have to do with your war on the world?" the Battle Princess asks, emboldened by her partner's touch. "You brought havoc and death upon us all." "Have I, though?" the Giant King asks in reply. Blodred turns on her heel, carelessly exposing her back to them in an ultimate, insulting show of strength. She does not fear them, even now. She never did. "Follow me," she commands. Despite themselves, they do. Hand in hand, they cross the throne room in Blodred's wake, following the course of the billowing folds of her skirt as the edges drag along the floor, softly jingling. She leads them to a side passage that opens onto a large open balcony. "Havoc, yes," Blodred says as they walk. "I have driven your peoples underground. I have razed your settlements. I have salted the earth of your meeting sites. But how many have I killed and how many have died in counterattacks upon my people? There is little blood on my hands that could not have been avoided had you gone quietly into the dirt and stayed there." In the center of the balcony is a large, many-tiered cylinder, mounted on a heavy tripod. A telescope. It is pointed at the moon. "Have a look," the Giant King invites. Noura goes first. She bends down to look through the viewer and comes up white as milk. Chain pushes in to see for herself and reflexively reaches for the weapon she no longer possesses before she backs away in staggered disbelief. The surface of the moon is moving. Only it isn't the surface of the moon: it's the Giants that live there. Thousands—no, hundreds of thousands of Giants. The entire surface of the moon is covered with a roiling, orgiastic mass of Giants. Enough Giants to destroy the world and then some. "Let me tell you a story of my people," says Blodred. She leans on the railing, looking out over the mountains, as if she were on vacation at her summer villa and not at home in the castle of nightmares from which she had launched a campaign against all those who dwell in the green places of this world. "A thousand generations ago, maybe longer, we Giants lived inland," she says. "It was a time of harmony, prosperity, and possibility, as few challenges proved insurmountable when faced with Giant strength, Blue magic, and Golden ingenuity. Our greatest achievement was a bridge to the moon. Giants were the natural vanguard, as we need no air to breathe and feel no cold or heat. Led by a Small Giant, one of my past incarnations, nearly the whole host of Giants went up to the moon together to lay the foundations of a new great city, the first of many among the stars. "But down on the surface, the King of the Golden Folk schemed. She feared that our strength would one day threaten her rule, and that fear turned her ingenuity into cruelty. When the last of the Giants set foot upon the moon, she tore down the bridge and destroyed the technology that made it possible, forever severing us from our own planet. The Children of the Blue fled to the forests in disgust, rejecting further cohabitation with the Golden Folk. Those Giants that had stayed behind either fled into the wastes or were slain." The Battle Princess, having regained some of her golden color while resting in the arms of her Shield-Maiden, steps forward. "We have a similar story in my people's oral tradition," she says, "that of the Last King of the Golden Folk. It tells us that Giants were a constant threat in those days, that they would raid our villages, raping and pillaging, murdering livestock and burning our crops. The Last King led a grand crusade to drive the Giants from our land. She was successful, but she went mad in the process and began to commit atrocities against her own people. That is why we abolished the tradition of hereditary kings among the Golden Folk and now only institute Battle Kings in times of deepest crisis." Blodred's laugh is low and haunted. She turns and there is a fire in her eyes that is somehow more frightening than anything described in the stories of her monstrous nature. It is a cold fire, that which burns from within. "You have seen the prophecy, the same as I," she says. "A vision taken from Time itself cannot be a lie. Knowing what you know now, which history do you think is true, little Battle Princess?" Noura opens her mouth, intending defiance, but the words catch in her throat. She has experienced the cruelty of her people first hand. "We can be different," she manages, the words so soft that they are barely spoken. "Liar!" shouts the Giant King. Blodred moves faster than either of them would have believed, clasping Noura by the waist and hauling her into the air. Chain moves quickly, too, but the gesture is impotent: the Giant King catches her by the arm and dangles her like a rag doll some three feet off the ground, ignoring the rain of kicks and blows from her free arm and legs as if they were a gentle breeze. Noura struggles, but like Fantasmagoria before her, she cannot escape from Blodred's grip. Unlike Fantasmagoria, she wears a battle dress, and with each twist she feels its seams pop and rings tear, ripping like taffeta beneath the Giant King's nails. The more she struggles, the more she makes herself vulnerable. She ignores the small voice inside her head that tells her: yes, keep going, this is what you want, and goes still. "You understand," says Blodred. "I know you do. You must." The Battle Princess shakes her head and closes her eyes, willing the thoughts away, pushing back at the feeling of the strong, hot hand around her waist. "Look at me, Noura, Battle Princess of the Golden Folk," she snarls. "Lie to me again." Her eyes snap open and their gazes meet. In an invisible flash, that ineffable fire passes between them. Noura shivers involuntarily and half her bodice falls away with a popping, tearing sound. The Shield-Maiden stops fighting the Giant King's hold, distracted first by the sound of breaking and then by Noura's exposed chest. She never could focus properly when Noura had her tits out—it might have been her greatest weakness. Almost on command, she feels her cock begin to swell within her trousers. How can she be thinking about that at a time like this? But then she sees the tears streaming down Noura's face and, for a moment, all carnal thoughts vanish and her singular, protective drive reasserts itself. Summoning strange force, she leaps off the Giant King's arm, breaking her monstrous grip, tumbling through the air to land several feet away, and reading herself for a counterattack. "I understand," whispers Noura. Chain stops dead where she stands. The Giant King bellows with laughter. When her peals of laughter finally die out, Blodred sets Noura upon her feet, so gently as not to leave another scratch. She brushes past them both with not so much as a word, returning inside and mounting the dais to sit upon her nightmare throne. No words are needed, because the message is clear: come find me when you are ready. The Battle Princess wobbles on her feet and the Shield-Maiden is there, catching her in her arms, trying to ignore her beautiful golden skin, urging her rising cock to calm. "Oh, Chain," Noura weeps, "Chain, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I understand her, now. Damn me, but I do." The look of confusion on Chain's face almost makes Noura laugh, despite their circumstances, and that moment of levity allows her to notice the hard tent at the crotch of the Shield-Maiden's trousers. She reaches down and wraps her fingers around Chain's cock through the twill. Chain stiffens in all the places she can stiffen. "Really, you," Noura laughs. "It's the end of the world and all you can think about is—" She notices the state of her clothing. Funny that she hadn't before. "Ah," she says. "That would explain it." Chain shrugs. It is a well-established weakness. The Battle Princess stands under her own will and takes the Shield-Maiden's face in her hands, guiding her gaze up and away from her chest, locking eyes like she had a few moments ago with the Giant King. "Chain, my beloved," she says, "we have failed. We will not kill the Giant King, for her cause is the more righteous. But rather than reign in our promised heaven, perhaps we are better off serving her in this hell." They go together. Blodred's voice reverberates through the throne room as they approach. "Tyranny is in the nature of the Golden Folk," she declares. "Any rise to power by their hand will end in corruption. In the end, that corruption will kill us all." Chain leaves her shield behind on the throne room floor as she ascends the first steps up to the dais. "Our only hope, then," Blodred offers, "is to change the very nature of the Golden Folk. It is a hard task, but one that I believe can be accomplished through sufficient environmental pressures." Noura discards her protective bangles. She won't need them anymore. They ring and clatter as they roll down the stair. "To purge them of tyranny, scourge them with tyranny," says Blodred. "Give them such excess that the taste sours. Wrap the memory so tightly around them that they can no longer twist their histories. Carve the lesson into their very bones." They fall to their knees at the foot of the throne, heads bowed, flanking Fantasmagoria. "You punish them so that they do not commit future crimes," says Noura. "Yes," Blodred agrees, "and I will do so for howsoever long as I live—and we Giants live long, even the small ones." "What of the end?" Noura asks. "At the end," she answers, "I will cease to hold back the tide of my sisters on the moon. With my last breath, I will loose them upon this world. They will ruin it as it has ruined them. But they will pass, as all things do, and those who survive their passing will be changed. The course of Time will fork. The future predicted will never be, for the Golden Folk will be tarnished beyond recognition." Noura looks over at Chain. There's fear in both their eyes, but the bond of trust between them is unbreakable. Chain still isn't quite sure she understands what's happened, but Noura's intentions are clear enough for her to follow. Noura is terrified for what will come next, but she knows that she will never be alone. "What of the time before the end?" asks Noura. "We can no longer go home." "I live here by myself," says Blodred, "but there is more than enough room for two more. Between your magic and hers, applied appropriately, I daresay you could live nearly as long as me." "How will we pass the time?" she murmurs, voice trembling. "How else?" laughs the Giant King. "Pleasure." She spreads her knees and pulls her skirt up around her waist. Between red granite thighs, her cunt unfurls like a many-tongued flame, glimmering slickly in the firelight, a bouquet of flesh around an infinitely dark pit that pulses as it beckons. Noura steps out of her half-torn dress as she rises to her feet. She runs a hand over her own cunt, confirming her suspicion as it comes away drenched. Her fluids are hot, but they leave her skin cold where her fingers trail, up across her belly and around the nipples of her full breasts in ceremonial circles, drawing Blodred's eye. "Chain," she commands, "show her your skill." Gleefully obeying, she crawls across the dais on all fours, locking on to her target. She comes up between Blodred's legs without fear and dives in tongue first. With so much ground to cover, she works swiftly, running her fingers through the parted folds of her labia and locating the engorged ruby of her clit. She twines her fingers around it, pinching and rubbing, but she cannot see the way Blodred's composure cracks, just for a moment, as her grin contorts into a wince of pleasure. Noura, in a flurry of motion, seizes this opportunity to climb up Blodred's calf and onto her lap. She lets her cunt grind across Blodred's knee as she goes and nearly comes undone, spasming with the sudden hard heat of their contact, but her years in the wilderness have made her resilient and she powers through. Her legs settle into the nooks of Blodred's haunches and she centers herself, cunt pressing against Blodred's pelvic mound, throbbing to the beat of Chain's attack, as she stretches skyward for a nervous kiss. Blodred's lips envelop Noura's ahead of her invading tongue, long and thick enough to fill Noura's whole mouth, cutting short her breath as a deep, strangled moan rumbles within her chest. Not soon enough to defend herself, Noura realizes that this is only a feint—and Blodred's true counterattack is merciless. She lifts one of Noura's perfect teardrop tits in each large hand and squeezes, pulling on them with such force that Noura worries briefly that her flesh might rip as easily as her dress had before. Her fears are unfounded. There is more pleasure than pain and she has suffered worse. As Blodred continues to pull, lifting Noura into the air for one tingling second, Chain shifts her stance, intent on breaking Blodred's guard. She clamps her whole mouth around Blodred's clit and begins to suck as, in the same motion, she plunges her sword hand into Blodred's depths. Blodred groans through gritted teeth and releases Noura, mindful to catch her before she falls off her lap, hands around her waist like a girdle. She lifts Noura, toes in the air, and brings her cunt up to her own mouth. Noura has just a moment to consider the size of Blodred's tongue as it presented itself to her mouth before it pushes past her labia and all the way inside of her in one skewering thrust. Her scream of shocked joy is loud enough to shatter even Chain's legendary focus. Never one to back down from a challenge, Chain redoubles her efforts. She lashes Blodred's clit with her tongue as she jackhammers her hand, nearly all the way up to her elbow with every thrust, engaging every combat muscle she has. Not to be outdone, Blodred's tongue flies in, out, and around Noura's cunt. She keeps Noura's hips steady in a vice-like grip, but this only encourages her upper half, hanging down, to whirl and curl like a banner in the breeze. Noura's mind, carried away on overwhelming tides of stimulation, goes back to the first time she and Chain had engaged in coitus. They had been on the road for months, learning to trust each other, discovering how to make up for each other's weaknesses and how to enhance each other's strengths. It would be a long time yet before the Giants began to fear them, but they were making headway. That night she had made a mistake and, if not for Chain's shield, she might have lost everything—and never have made it to this moment of exquisite bliss. What she didn't think she'd ever told her companion was just what had driven her to distraction. The Giant itself hadn't been that fierce or even that large, but its cock had been simply massive, even by Giant standards, not to mention so knobby and knotted that the damned thing had trouble walking straight. She could never have—it would have killed her on the spot, split her right in twain—but some part of her had wondered: what if? Now she thinks it might have been something like this. It's not that Blodred's tongue is so impossibly large—Chain's cock reaches deeper than this—but there's something monstrous about her effort, something all-consuming, as if her tongue reaches not just into her cunt but all the way inside to her spirit. For the first time, Noura feels confident in the choice she made. There may be no glory, but there will indeed be pleasure enough to make up the difference. As that last bit of resistance crumbles, she lets the feelings wash over her in full and her body convulses, starting in her delta and radiating outward, the sweet devastation of a powerful orgasm. It's only when her voice cracks and falls mute that she realizes she has been screaming obscenities this whole time. She can feel Blodred laughing around her tongue—menacing, wicked, joyful, proud. The Giant King—no, she is not that, not now, not ever again. Blodred lets Noura fall into her lap a moment before her eyes close and her shoulders briefly crumple. She feels Blodred's hips rock and pump and looks back to see Chain, drenched from brow to stomach, looking nearly as pleased with herself as Blodred had sounded just before. Chain pulls her hand from Blodred's cunt and offers it to Noura. It is hot and damp and she doesn't care. She takes it and slips from Blodred's lap, with all the grace of someone recently fucked into oblivion, but Chain steadies her and sees that she comes to no harm, as Chain always does. "Why are you still dressed?" queries Noura. Chain shrugs. "I can help with that," says Blodred. She reaches around Noura with both hands and digs her fingernails into the garments that cover Chain. Two quick tugs and they are torn to ribbons, leaving her with nothing to do but step out of her boots. Chain may not be so impressively bulky as Blodred, but she has a fencer's tone. Noura knows every slight curve of that pale blue chest—she has traced every last one of them with her eyes, her fingers, her tongue—but her eyes are drawn, as ever, downward to the deep cut of her hips and the prominence at the apex of her delta: a cock as long, straight, and hard as any sword she ever wielded, suspended beneath a tuft of sand-gray hair. She sinks to her knees on the dais and reaches out to take Chain's cock by the base, just above her balls, and draws her inward, step by little step, until the drooling tip is close enough to kiss. Noura wraps her lips around Chain's head, gently probing with her tongue, lapping at her little hole, as she draws back the foreskin, fully unsheathing Noura's favorite weapon. Noura could do this for hours, left to her own pleasures, but Blodred's claws run the length of her back, reminding her of her presence. The delicate pressure bites into her flesh, soft enough not to leave a mark, but strong enough to fully indicate that she could be ripped to shreds as easily as Chain's meager garments. In response, she stands, rising and turning, bending slightly at the waist and waving her ass invitingly as she braces herself against Blodred's inner thighs. Chain needs no further direction. She takes two steps forward, squares her feet, and drives her cock up into Noura's cunt. It is a movement they have thoroughly practiced, but that does not lessen its effect. Noura crashes forward, haphazardly burying her face in Blodred's cunt, entirely lacking the coordination or coherence to do much more than wriggle. The plap-plap-plap of their bodies parting and joining is wet and loud as Chain shows off another of her skills: she rapidly accelerates to punishing speed, even as her hands slip around Noura's waist, one sliding up to snatch an aggressively bouncing nipple, the other sliding down to roll Noura's clit. Noura roars into Blodred's nether maw. Blodred's hands descend. Her thick red fingers roughly caress Chain's cheek while she runs her thumbnail across Chain's lips, encouraging them to make way for her to come inside. Chain complies, parting breathily, tongue dancing, but the taste of Blodred's thumb at the back of her throat is too much for her to bear. She explodes inside of Noura without warning, filling her up with thick, fruitless seed. Noura quakes, toes curling, and takes over, thrusting backwards against Chain in short, hard strokes, her hands replacing Chain's over her tits and cunt, working feverishly until she, too, tips over the edge. They collapse together at the base of the throne, tangled and curled in a knot of burning limbs. Blodred lets them rest a few minutes, bright eyes studying the trophies of her conquest, but impatience soon gets the better of her. She steps over them as she climbs off her throne, briefly shadowing their quivering bodies, and crosses the dais. She unburdens herself of her skirt and her jewelry as she goes, even discarding the golden circlet with that damning bauble at its center. They have served their purpose and she has achieved her goal. What further care ought she offer them? In their dazed but still enthusiastically aroused state, both Noura and Chain take this moment to appreciate the awful greatness of Blodred's ass. It is somehow both plump and cut, the kind of ass that leaves you torn between wanting to spank it and wanting to be smothered beneath it, and it sways hypnotically as she strides. A shock of fear creeps into their admiration, however, when they recognize her destination. Blodred puts both hands on the sword Fantasmagoria and draws her from the dais. It offers no resistance and gleams as she holds it high, a black mirror in the half-lit dark. If she wants them dead, she will have it. They are stripped of all defense, broken of all resistance, and freed of all pretense. Swaddled in this warm and well-fucked glow, Noura would almost welcome death, she thinks, though Chain might disagree. It does not matter. Blodred has something else in mind. She lifts the sword to her lips and whispers so softly that no one but she can hear her command. "Yes, my wielder," sings the living weapon. The transformation is odd, even by Fan's standards. She ratchets and splits open in the usual way, but fully transitions into her anthropoid form, suspended in the air and pirouetting like a dancer. Chain catches her eye and sees something there on her nominally expressionless face. Approval, perhaps? Fan's arms coil amorously around her slender body as she twirls and slowly loses distinction, her sparse shape smoothing out into a long curving column, bulbously rounded on both ends. This column bends wraps around itself in a double helix as it shrinks and gains density, finally bending one more time into a boomerang-like angled rod. Noura figures it out first and utters a gurgle of delighted anticipation, but the purpose of that form dawns on Chain when Blodred inserts the shorter, thicker end of the weapon into her cunt, leaving the other end to jut out perpendicularly from her delta. Yes, it is ribbed in a double spiral; yes, it is composed of glassy black meteorite steel; yes, it is etched with mystic traces of brightly glowing green, but it is a cock, through and through. What's more, it is a cock suitably sized for Blodred's prodigious frame, therefore dwarfing not only Chain's otherwise substantial cock but also all of even the most creatively-applied objects that either of them have ever put inside themselves. Unsure whether she's fit to laugh or to cry, Noura amends her naive notion that Blodred's tongue would be the closest she could approach to getting fucked by a Giant. Without realizing it, her fingers are already in her cunt, spreading herself open. Chain is similarly occupied, scooping the steady stream of pre-ejaculate that drools from her rising cock and working it into the puckered purple rim of her asshole. Blodred, seeing this, makes her selection. "You will have to wait your turn, little Princess," she asserts with a smirk. She grabs them both around the waist and lifts them onto the seat of her throne, spreading Noura's legs and placing Chain between then, pressing her back comfortably into Noura's tits. When Noura reaches around, attempting to capture her cock and bring it to her needy mouth, Blodred playfully swats her away. They will have centuries for cock-worship. Right now, she is king and her desire reigns. Without words—unless one counts her stirring growls—she directs Noura to hold Chain's legs behind the knees, presenting her unobstructed ass. Chain's efforts to prepare herself for Blodred's coming were well-intentioned, but insufficient. She squats before the throne, appreciating the weight of Fantasmagoria as she swings, and attacks Chain's asshole with her tongue, routing her involuntary defenses and invading her depths. Perhaps it is Blodred's imagination, but the weapon feels like it is further transforming inside of her, subtly oscillating in a most stimulating manner that only stokes the fires of her need. Chain whimpers and groans, sinking her teeth into Noura's neck to steady herself. Noura, in turn, worries unnecessarily that she may so flood the seat of the throne that they will slide right off. She laughs between gasps of pleasure at this ludicrous notion. When Chain's cock bursts open, anointing Blodred's forehead with a new fluid circlet, she determines that she can wait no longer. She stands again at full height, towering over her small and colorful playthings. These are all the jewels she needs. She spits into her palm and slathers it over the head of the cock Fantasmagoria, widens her stance, and guides herself to Chain's gaping hole. Chain screams as Blodred forces herself inside, but not in pain. Noura has tended to Chain's every wound for the last several years and knows that Chain is silent in her suffering. She is anything but silent, now. Fantasmagoria pulses inside of Blodred's cunt as she thrusts. Blodred does not know what it's like to have a natural cock—even the deepest Giant magics could not grant her that, even if she wanted it—but somehow she thinks this is not a poor simulation. Each time she goes deeper and harder into Chain, the weapon vibrates more furiously inside of her, a feedback loop so intoxicating that Blodred entirely forgets herself. Her hands grip the back of the throne, claws digging into the wood, and she ruts like a hog in heat, fangs bared, unable to hold back her hot breath or the rumble within her lungs. Noura, seeing Blodred's transformation, her red body a canopy that blocks out the world above, holds Chain all the more tightly, bracing their bodies together in an attempt to tame Chain's helpless convulsions. The only thing she gains from this, however, is a keener connection to the force of Blodred's cock, transferred through Chain's body and into her own. As Chain's spine grinds against her delta, it is suddenly as if Blodred is fucking them both at the same time. Her climax comes faster than she can prepare for it, and only her indomitable will keeps her hold on Chain's legs intact. Chain, for her part, has long lost count of her orgasms. Her cock flails with every thrust, and spurts forth ejaculate every other, splattering them all with hot and sticky goo. Some reserved part of her mind—her battle sense, perhaps—wonders if this isn't what she has trained her body for all these long years, building up stamina and endurance. She was built to take the blows of Giants, but she never imagined it would be so rewarding. Blodred's blood boils, a release more complete than any she has known in her years of conquest bubbling up, drawn forth by the rasping, raw voices below her that scream out from her touch and the steady undulations within her of the weapon she thought she understood. As it surges, Fan reveals one more trick, flaring at the opening of Blodred's cunt to shut off all escape and opening a narrow passage within, straight through to her mushroom tip. It has been a long, long time since Chain felt anyone come in her ass, and it never felt anything like this. A torrent of Blodred's juices unleash themselves with in her with such drowning volume that it entirely pushes the cock from her passage. Blodred, her orgasm continuing, watches helplessly as her glistening cock spasms and showers the two on her throne. She may be Giant King for all those on and under the ground, but in this moment she is unmade. With great relief, she sinks to her knees, enveloping their heaving flesh with her own. There are no more Kings or Princesses or Maidens. She is Blodred. She is Noura. She is Chain. They are lovers, till death do them part from this forsaken world. But Noura is not finished with her, yet. With strength she barely thinks to have, she lifts Blodred by the shoulders and leans her back on her heels. Chain slips tidily off her lap and curls, sleep dragging her down into rest. The cock Fantasmagoria still sprouts from Blodred's cunt, tireless and immovable, and Noura helps herself to its pleasures. She climbs atop the black spire, straddling Blodred's hips, and skewers herself on half its length, driving it in as deep as it will go. Goddesses, it is thick. Blodred's half-lidded eyes snap open. "I have waited my turn," Noura explains. "Have at it, then," Blodred agrees. She arches her back as she rides, letting her tits bounce freely in an alluring spectacle. Her long auburn hair, come unwoven from its sensible braids, dances in ribbons around her as she throws her head back and wails, able to fuck unhidden from the world, now that she sits atop its crown. Blodred grunts with Noura's every fall, mastering herself, refusing to take over but unused to being the one being fucked. She could get used to this, she thinks, but that thought is replaced with another as Chain—impossibly recovered—climbs up onto her chest, plants her knees on her shoulders, takes hold of the back of her head with both hands, and thrusts her cock inside her open mouth. Soon, Blodred's mastery crumbles, and she wraps her hands around their two backs, encouraging them and lending them her power. Noura rides her magic cock as Chain fucks her face, and before any of them can mark the passage of time, they are all splayed on the dais in a post-orgasm heap, the smaller two nestled in the crooks of Blodred's broad arms, their hands woven together across her stomach. Noura's hand strays southward once more to wrap around the base of Blodred's cock. "Fantasmagoria, yourself," she whispers. "Yes, my wielder," the weapon replies. A fourth body joins the pile, her slender and graceful figure settled into the valley between Blodred's thighs, her head pillowed on Blodred's stomach. Chain's fingers brush lovingly across the gemlike swoosh of her pointed head and Fan sighs, content. At the end of their long journey, they have all found home. +++ "That is where we will conclude this campaign," I said. I was pretty sure that Hen had stopped listening a few minutes ago. She had her trousers unbuttoned, her cock in her hand, and was stroking languidly with her eyes closed. Technically, that was a foul, but as this was the finale, I'd let it slide. Besides, I was always surprised by just how much information she retained even when she seemed a million miles away—it would be like her to recall some detail so small I had barely noticed I'd said it, later, when we lay awake in bed. Livret, on the other hand, was wide-eyed and slack-jawed across the table. If I'd looked beneath, I imagine I would've found the skirt of her dress lifted high with the strength of her erection, but she had the grace to keep her hands where I could see them. Soft applause interrupted the pregnant silence that followed my denouement. Ekene, sitting at the counter, had never participated in our game, but was a frequent spectator—a privilege I could hardly deny her, since we were playing in the semi-secret room above her pub. She was fully naked and looked as though she'd already given herself a good working over. I had noticed movement, but hadn't let myself be distracted. Now, however, the game was over and she looked delicious. "Fuck me, Cinna," whispered Livret. "That was one hell of an ending." "Indeed," agreed Hen. "Speaking of fucking me, which one of you is going to do that? I need it. Now." She stood up from her chair and put her elbows on the table, ass raised, slapping her cock down on her character sheet as if to make a point. I sympathized perhaps too much with Blodred in that moment, knowing that I had all the time in the world to fuck Hen to my heart's content. Livret, meanwhile, looked just as painfully in need as Hen, even if she wouldn't announce it as boldly. "Go ahead," I encouraged her. "We're done playing." She practically knocked over the table in her hurry to get on her feet. Like I'd expected, her dress was just getting in the way at this point, and she pulled it up and over her head before circling around behind Hen. There was no foreplay. There was no need. "Which one?" asked Livret, eyeing her two possible targets. Hen reached back and spread wide her asshole, which was already dripping with mixed ichor. Livret lifted her hefty cock, its usual curious yellow-white on her otherwise dusty purple body, and slipped it into Hen's greedy ass with a shuddering sigh of satisfaction. I moved over to the secret bar while my players fucked each other's brains out, much like their characters had on so many previous occasions. Ekene made no obvious moves on me, but nor did she hide her heightened state. It was plain as anything between the look on her face and the trail of sap down her inner thighs that she'd given herself several orgasms already and still wanted more, but she was rarely one to press. "You should be proud," she told me. "Completing any endeavor is remarkable, but especially when it is one so long-tended as this." How long had we been playing? Seven or eight years, I figured. "I don't feel proud," I said. "I'm just tired. Endings are hard." She didn't say anything in response to that, she just made a sound that from her translated, more or less, to: no shit. There was a loud crash and the sound of scattering dice as Hen flipped onto her back on the table. Livret had switched holes and was intently fucking Hen's cunt while Hen rapidly stroked her own cock, angling it to shoot herself in the face when she climaxed. She loved that move, even if it made a mess. "Well," said Ekene, breaking the silence again, "would you like me to go down on you?" "Yeah," I admitted. "I'd like that."