User blog:MockingJester/Erred purpose

The wind travels the plains, dancing in open spots. It gorges on the emptiness of space surrounded by thick, swamp trees and the slimy liquid that oozes from it. The sun shined without a challenger. No dense foliage. No warping branches. No muddy swamps to slow the traveler.

This particular spot was a rare slice of the jungle, devoid of the usual blemish that would slightly narrow its view. Clear skies. Green grass. Dry grounds. The perfect spot for a cultivator to linger.

It is here that he lingers, his body concealed by errant magic. To look at him was to see nothing but a shifting chameleon cloaked with a jade veil. It shimmers with every movement, too quick for the mundane eye to spot it. Too persistent for even the slight opacity of the cloak to be distinct from the surrounding.

The beasts that wander the vast jungles in search of a fresh meal could stray in front of him and never even get a hint of his presence. Not that they would dare map this spot, the so-called 'Grace of Ares'. Named so for the amber bulbs that grow here, thought to be touched by the goddess of war herself eons ago.

They stray away from here, fearful. Many observers thought they'd feel watched. Glared at. Unwelcomed. Beasts saw this place as a curse. But men like Jeshua saw a bounty to collect. An everlasting blessing that grows back as quickly as the mild harvesting. Wordless rules suggested a moderate cultivating as to perpetual this spot made haven and bountiful harvest.

A knee on the blessed grass that host the crystal-like bulbs, he plucks yet another branch full of them, a rare boon. Only after this one, he feels safe enough here.

"Ugh, I feel forgetting that they never walk here." His voice is dubbed with a distorted double, as low as his actual voice. It signals a fierce green shimmer washing over him, dulling the cloaking magic that made him a none entity.

It no longer hid the silver that adorned his limbs and torso, the armor of his tribe. The ravenous runes that burned into its metallic flesh were as plain as the crimson cloak that ran around his neck and kilt fitted to his knees. As he was with a knee down and fingers examining a freshly plucked flower of crystalline amber...

...it could not hide the leggings running up to his pelvis bones. Wrapped by additional groin armor, they seamlessly burrowed underneath, hidden still, if only partially.

The most striking part of the man, however, was his face. The bestial skull of a horse chromed in silver acted as his head and face. A bright emerald glowed from within its seemingly empty eyesockets, giving away the eyes inside and their irises. They glow in gentle, inconspicuous power that displayed restraint. A contrast to the intimidating mask and the horns that protrude from its skull.

Jeshua's free arm pushes away his cloak, revealing a compartment on his knee, grasped by his hand. A basket of fiber, ripe with a fruitful harvest. Twinkling grass and a bundle of crystalline bulbs laid underneath a soft silky cloth. It was gray, not unlike his silver armor.

Right now, the latest addition to his collection was being scrutinized, gaze up close. The gleaming eyes beneath the deathly horse skull, looking for any sign of imperfection.

"Nope. This one is also good." The chiseled bloom joined the rest in the basket, concluding his collection. Jeshua had more than what the usual 'house lord' collected in terms of the crystalline flowers, blossomed or not. He turned down a year of other extra as to be granted this amount of blessed perennials.

With his bounty firmly secured on his arm, Jeshua gets up and looks at his surroundings. The place was peaceful, even by the swamp's standards. It was no longer besieged by the swamp creatures that adorned themselves in weed and mud. They, who once dwelled in the depth of the swamp, teeth as large as the arm of men and jaw the size of an adult were no longer here. Only a few desperate ones persisted.

Jeshua remembers the tales of how the cobalt warriors, the amazons of his tribe ran a trail of lightning on the largest and most dangerous ones. The alphas, the primal rulers, all of them fell to the demonic women in blue hues and single horns. They became the azure shroud of death to any dwelling creature that lingered here, making them reluctant to dwell still, let alone in this place made sacred to them.

One of them stalked the fauna, its shadow visible behind the thick and twisted branches of the swamp. Jeshua didn't pay it any mind as he took enough of the view. He was going to leave this peaceful place, well aware of the shadow peering from the darkness.

The moment it laid eyes on the lone man, he was already gone. Coiled by the mysticism of his being, the jade cloak that made him invisible wrapped over him. Even the faint disturbance of the veil dissipated as he quietly backstepped, turning the beast's rare instance of potential prey to confusion. There was nothing here. It was not going to risk stepping on the sacred land, fearful of a sudden blue bolt crashing at him from the heavens...

---

"I sure am glad I learned this spell." Navigating the swamp was easy for the man. A year ago, he could barely make five steps before tripping on some hidden vine. These were often underneath the boggy, muddy water of the vegetation. Easy to purify, but excellent concealment to tripping hazards. Easy for newbies like he was.

Living as the provider to one of the fabled cobalt amazons made him rugged and spry, wondrous traits for a man with the house to maintain. What was a lord to his house if he couldn't take care of it?

That would never be him. Not with the recollecting memories that occasionally flow through his mind, the collection of his past. As they passed across, his arm began to feel like fire was burning. His hand holding the basket felt like it was cooking up. His running stance was slowed a bit by the clutching of his arm.

It hurt a bit...

Eventually, it was visible. Among many others like it, his domain appeared in the distance. It stood out to him like a beacon of crimson tiles on its walls. It was nothing that anyone would expect of a tribal settlement. It was no small hut, but a venerable house prone to rival houses of advanced cities.

Stone walls surround the many peeking houses. All corners are adjusted with a watchtower, which themselves are teeming with distant figures. As Jeshua approached evermore, he came across the only entrance besieged by two smaller towers. They seemed to fit more as pivots to massive doors than towers. A bright, green wall threaded between the small towers, growing increasingly dull to the point of near invisibility at the middle.

As he crossed it, Jeshua felt his individuality scanned while purged of his invisibility spell. The wall responded with a molding acceptance, dissipating for just long enough to pass through.

He was inside the settlement. It was a majestic place beset by many standard houses. As standard as the jade lanterns flanking each of their fronts could be. Jeshua looks at the many similar but distinct households clothed with a unique banner. A sigil of the house lord and the matron that dwell within.

All of them are connected by a path of glimmering sapphire chiseled from stone and surrounded by the material. They led to main walking lanes leading further to standard and specialized shops of many purposes. This settlement was among many others, visible in the great distance. Great roads ran from the other side of this city further North to a great spire twice as tall as a mountain. It was monumental, reaching up to the very heavens. Gold spikes threading around the massive spire glimmered gently under the sun's array.

Jeshua continues to walk further, picking out his domain among the rest. That sweet spot flanked by lanterns of his working. As befitting his role in this land ruled by cobalt warrior women, their dim emerald atmosphere worked to warp any injury, mild and medium to non-existence.

However, as he walked closer, he heard weeping. "Crying? That voice--" His body tenses up and prompts him forward, his hand spontaneously glimmering with a mending jade at its fingertips.

Barging in, Jeshua is prone to the decorum of the house, brilliantly mixing gray tiles and cobalt light sources. Usually, he'd allow a minute to breathe in the wild serenity of the place, subtly illuminated with glowing vines stretching out through the frames and ceilings. They react and glow according to the presence of people and the current time of the day, offering the man a seamless light show to guide him across.

Jeshua looked away from the blue that complemented the marble floors that spread out to the innards of the house. His eyes were up the stairs where the soft sobbing lingered from. His sprint is quiet and subtle, yet tumultuous and rampant, ignoring the aching his arm did once again with every step. This seemed to be triggered by the wailing, throbbing, and hurting in his mind.

Through the door to the master's room, he met the source of the sobbing. The evening was still shining brightly outside, giving away a yellowish dimness through the window. It was shading around a figure straddling the bed. A leg idles across its lowering form, dangling just barely.

It is her leg that dangles next to the other one. It is her arms that cuddle a cloak identical to the one that is befitting his shoulders. It is her glistening sapphire eyes, a sight to behold next to the blue moon, that drip blue tears down the crimson cloak. It is her lips, touched by the hands of a silk artisan and soaked in the flavor of berries that grow in Winter, that weep this despondent note.

His warrior. His amazon. His maiden. His wife. His mind presses him on. 'Heal her,' it demanded, leading his steps on. Heavy-booted steps that prompted a twitch from her finely honed ears.

"!!" Her head rises ahead, her long, straight, dark blue hair following behind. A band of it leaned from beneath her left side, hiding one of her eyes behind it. On the same side her single horn proudly jutted upward in a single sharp end.

Feeling her eyes put a stop to Jeshua's walk, unsure of what do to. She didn't look injured anywhere. But, the way she sobbed, sounding so dispirited--

"Jessy!!!" The tumbling roll of thunder fleetingly illuminates the room as the dirge-bound amazon sprinted straight for the man. The cloak that wetted with tears was abandoned for the man whom she wraps around, glistening tears shining in midair as they fell.

'Jessy' was the pet name she used when talking about and directly to Jeshua. Someone she was currently trying not to choke in her choking hug. She was as tall as he was, toned with abs and limbs of steel, yet as soft as the pillows of their bed. It was a dichotomy he learned not to question.

"Oh, Jessy...!" Her arms hug him tightly. He feels the trembling bones that rattle them in their wake. He feels the dread that, just a while ago, rendered them feeble, drained of any vigor...

"Mimi..." His pet name for his maiden in cobalt plates. Or, currently in silk and sash. A short version of  "You're trembling. You don't usually shake like this."

"Ah..." Her face leaps away from the shoulder it cradled in, eyes facing his mask. Her lower lip trembles as well as her gaze, making the tide of caramel pigmentation uneven.

She looks at him with a mix of relief and pain, a glance far from the fierce twin-axes woman that constantly promises him a harmless return from her hunts and expeditions. It made his arm ache again and his face wince, concealed from behind his mask.

"I thought that..." her hands, currently bearing on his shoulders, clench "...I thought you had gone and abandoned me..."

"What?!" Jeshua's voice raised in a shout distorted by his skull mask mystical bindings.

"I thought you left me! Abandoned me..."

"Mimi..." It was his turn to grasp her. His armor-coated hands go straight for her cheeks still wet with sober tears. They still hum with a jade aura, an attempt to decipher and mend any potential injury.

"...what are you going on about?! Abandon you? Why would I do that?"

"Have you not noticed your own behaviors? How you no longer wait by the stove when I come back from the hunts? My tasks?"

"Yes, I occasionally leave your dinner on the table, heated and ready to eat. What's wrong with that?"

"Your presence is lacking..." Mirandelle's eyes look to the side "...it lessens the worth of my meal. And you have been increasingly absent, leaving my supper to eat alone. We do not hug. We do not speak. It feels empty..."

"Really...?" Jeshua's voice growls in question. A question with a hint of hindsight playing. His mask makes it seem like nothing but a growl.

"The others tell me you often leave our parlor, whenever, wherever. Without a word. Without the usual chirp to your step. They tell me it feels weary and heavy. Like you're bound and restrained. I've seen it in the few times we crossed paths. Few times...in our own house..."

Mirandelle keeps her eyes away, again, on the verge of defiling her face with its stains "You've been more distant as of late. More entombed in your silver wrap, reserved, quiet. This evening, when I came back earlier, hoping to surprise the man I love dearly, you were nowhere to be found. It's been so many times disappeared...and this time, it was so soon, I thought that..."

"Hmm..." Jeshua narrows his eyes. He thinks of his demeanor for the last few months. The unusual distant bearing he held on to. The absent-minded motions he went around her. The grave gaze he had on his face. The seemingly random walks out he indulged in. Outside. Elsewhere. No word. Nothing in the way of an explanation.

"Ohh...oh, Mimi..." It was clear what she was referring to "...no, this isn't what you think this is."

"What I..." Her despondent tone falters, already tasting the voice of the man she loves so dearly. It wasn't as...calculative as it had become recently. Cold and quiet like exhausted coal.

Jeshua takes his hands away from the woman's shoulders back to his mask. The bony structure wrapped in silver appears to briefly shimmer in jade light, before falling inert. The eyes that glimmered in its sockets stopped.

With one hefty lift, Jeshua removed the skull mask that adorned his entire head. The first striking image was the slight tan that was washed on his skin. It was nowhere as deep as the caramel of Mirandelle, but still clearly present, pressing beyond the usual caucasian pigmentation.

His face and neck were both adorned with soft, yet vivid runic tattoos, the hue of their flashing force turned down by the wearer. They looked just like ordinary ones, making circling motions along the edges of his cheeks up to his ears. Judging by how the tattoos seemed to run, it'd be a good guess to assume his body was also blessed by their presence.

They enchant the fierce and benign expression that was masking his face. From the eyes as green as the jade color that once burned from the darkness of his skull mask's eye socket to the white hair and eyebrows that occasionally flicker with the same shade, Jeshua looked like a native to a tribe. He looked like a fusion of a shaman and an apothecary, both garnished with deceptively advanced medicate.

His hands let go of the inert skull mask that dissipates in green dust before it could even fall. "Yea..." he starts with, lounging back to grasp...wait...

"Eh? I swear I brought it with me...ohh..." The benign plastered on his face was replaced with mild panic. His steps contort back and run down the stairs, leaving the amazon curiously following. Her steps were more elegant than his frothing haste, each one, punctuated with the grace of a tribal princess.

Her current panoply said as much, the silk and sash that wrapped around her upper bust and thighs adorned with imageries of wandering lightning. They were trimmed in gold, occasionally flashing a true blue spec of electricity. They also featured slightly less opaque extensions of silk reaching down in both cases. Down the thighs, it amalgamed into a skirt. Down her bust, it coalesced into an alluring top, prone to lure the eyes of many to her barely covered belly.

"There it is! There it is..." She heard the man's relieved voice traveling up to her decreasing height as she reached the floor. Her bare feet, wrapped in the matching colors of her outfit, faced no discomfort on the lukewarm stone tiles.

"Ugh...way to fumble on the surprise..." She towered over his crouched form, currently picking up a very sought-out bounty. The basket became his last thought when her cries were so eminent. He forgot about them as he ran inside, dropping the valuables without a second thought.

"Are these...?"

"Ohh...yea. Crystalline bulbs. The main ingredient for making high-end potions. For strength. For dexterity. Reflexes. Any attribute you could ask for. I got a few today. I waited a while to finally get to harvest them."

"Ok...but, why? You know you don't fight. I doubt you'd need something this potent for the chores you usually carry out."

"They aren't for me..." Jeshua looks at Mirandelle. Then his eyes glance further into the kitchen. Her keen senses catch on and lead her head as well. The place looked less like a kitchen and more like an alchemist's laboratory. The walls are adorned with black bricks, a variant that swapped out the usual green. The room is lit with a fervent green of lanterns latched on the ceiling by black chains.

Looking longer, Mirandelle saw what looked like potions already in the making, currently standing by for more preparation. A bundle of raw material also rested on a separate table, smaller than the main one. It also didn't have the alchemist's circle spanning across its stony onyx flesh, glowing in blue hues.

The amazon looks in awe at the sheer amount idling by, waiting for the final touch to be completed. The number of vials that stood in waiting was more than enough for someone to go on an extended traveling...or to tame...wait...

"Wait...there's too many for just a hunt. Way too much. It's like you're trying to prep for...no...you're not..." Her keen mind caught on quick as she remembered one of her most anticipated hunts.

"I do. Mimi..." Finally, he was up, his basket full of rarity ready to be processed. He looks back to her increasingly widening eyes in awe. And soon, admiration.

"...I know how much you waited for the chance to cull an Aresian Taurus. You mutter that craving sometimes. Especially when you think you're out of an earshot."

"W-well, yes, but, these potions are hard to come by, let alone craft. A-and you look like you have a few lined up already!"

"Yes. It was not easy. Especially not in the first few months..." Jeshua shakes his head as he brings his hand to a corner of the shifted kitchen. Lured again, Mirandelle glances at the way he spread it out at a monumental pile of burned-out philters. Every one of them had the appearance of glass sundered under a concoction too powerful for it to hold and smelled just as much.

"Failure after failure will bring anyone's mood down, let me tell you. Turns out that I kept mixing the crystalline bulbs too early and the whole thing melted or burned down in unstable manners. It's only somewhat recently that I got the advice from another guy about manufacturing. Then, it was all a game of catch-up. Day and night working the stove, the brew, the different ones. It's all a delicate game of mixing as to make the stuff stable enough for a literal grace of a goddess."

"Months?" Her mind thinks again. His distant behavior. The accounts of him leaving in and out, constantly discouraged or exhausted. A sordid lack of expression. It all matched to the unfortunately common symptom of a disillusioned man steep in misery in other, distant tribes. Many accounts of men trying to flee or locked in perpetual despair traveled in the ears of the many here. Mirandelle thought that this afflicted him and despaired.

Relief warmed her heart as it turned out to be a relative newbie making potions way above his pay grade. And failing. Over and over in the span of months. And latterly succeeding, according to the stable batch waiting for the final touch.

"Hah...~ The warrior instincts salivated at the prospect of the damage she could do with these temporary boosts. It was more than enough to fell even an Aresian Taurus. Either the Phobos or Deimos variants would work. Even for a cobalt amazon blessed with heavenly thunder, killing one of the steel-flesh bull adorned with brass horns and sun-touched fires was no easy matter. And a right not easily given.

With this obscene amount of stocks, no one would dare to contest her the right to hunt one. A thought that filled her warrior heart with glee and wife one with greater pride. Though it falls like his barely hidden drab tone "It's the least I could do for what you did for me..."

Her ears were too privy to his despondent voice. They tasted it too often within the last few months. Even the smile he offered had a trace of wavering and uncertainty. And this one seemed particularly ready to peel away from any praise.

"Hmm?" He noticed the scrutinizing sapphire reflecting his none-too-hidden waver "Mimi...you don't need to worry about it."

"But I do." Mirandelle peels away from the bounty that could finally realize one of her most fervent dream to the man who held his arm still. It was paltry to her new stage of issues.

"Really, you don't need to worry about--"

His voice falls in silence. The stare showering in his way is one of bull-headed obstinacy, hindered by a heavy scowling shadow. It cuts away at any attempt at dismissal. Her hands converge on his, seeking them out. They grasp the metallic wrap that acts as protection to his fingers and palms "Tell me..."

"..." Jeshua feels her stubbornness bleeding in, fixated on his person. It wraps around his ears with a sincere worry, trying to ease its way in. With how her mother insisted on making sure the plates of his outfit fitted him to a tee, Jeshua always thought that it ran in the family. The hours spent on multiple failed molds said as much.

He could never hide his thoughts for too long, whether by words or with the way he's been slowly rubbing on his left arm recently...

"...I see..." With no transition, Mirandelle tugs at his left arm, the odd fixation of the last few months. Being the strength-dominant one in the household, her pull goes without resistance.

"?!!" Mechanisms click and clack across the armoring wrap. Its secondary layer peels off as pieces on the floor, clanking against the stone tiles. His arm was no longer hidden from the world. His suit, no longer complete.

The surprise came to Jeshua to see the silver flesh that long composed his arm exposed to the outside world. It was similar to the other arm, the one devoid of the metallurgy. But, as smooth and human-like as it was, that was so peerless seemed to be the source of his aching, the hurting sensation that passed on.

Regardless, it is out for all to see. For Mirandelle to see "I thought it'd take time for you to get adjusted to it. But, seeing how well you seem to move it, I doubt that's really it..."

She shakes her head "No, I see now. You feel inadequate."

"..." Jeshua's fall to complete silence said more than he wanted to. The way he was rattling his silver arm was his words. The way he glanced away was also his words. The stench of worthlessness was firmly on either case.

"Why drag an amputee away from his hole...is that what you're thinking? Why befit him with rare metal to replace his chopped limb? Why give him a home? Why give him a sense of belonging? Is that it?"

She lifts his arm up, the hues of the lanterns, the lights, natural and not, reflected off the silver working, making it even harder to hide "I could have gotten to someone else. A warrior. A knight. A fighter. Anyone not as damaged as you...and you've been trying to compensate for this. Grind yourself to the bone, hoping that I'd find my worth with a broken man..."

Her hand drags close to her, dragging the man she held by the arm as well, dangling him around like a cloth in the wind. A cloth she drops her grip on...only to double down on it.

Before he could say or do anything, Jeshua felt her arms wrapping around his dejected head. His mind, like his head, became cushioned on her silky bust, generous, yet reasonably in tow with her body. The arms that could cave a skull of steel, let alone bones, carefully ran behind his, dragging his body with it to her firm, but harmless touch. Even if they were of the appropriate similar height, this odd juxtapositioning reminded Jeshua just how disparate in terms of bodily might they were.

"But, there you are. A broken man that was on his last leg, spirited elsewhere. Far away from that accursed place that spat you out like used leather. Far away from the bastard that dared to slice your arm away and leave you to die in that hole. Him and his lumbering pack of delusional savages in their plates trying to emulate the zealots in the distant shore."

Mirandelle sighs as she briefly takes a glance at the living room, the seat of their house where most of their business takes hold. Up on one of the walls, just above the chimney, there was a frame. This frame of dark wood and brass trims held a sword. A shattered blade that snapped halfway in its length. As if something heavier punched through.

It was easy for her to track down the one who left her husband to die in the decrepit woods. Him and his 'pack'. All she needed was to set a bait. Fake trails, rare sights. The chance to take the head of someone like her was an irresistible lure to him.

And they came, silver blades very reminiscent of the golden ones far from the shore. They came with cruel grins and blood lust. They came for an easy murder, a butchery of what they saw as an 'abomination'.

Surrounding the woman who was spotted, the trails that led them here, the noise she made, they charged their razor blades with enchantment and lunged. No words. No declaration. Just the desire to skewer her.

Her finely toned body coated under a layer of cobalt flesh gave her the appearance of a dumb brute to them. A stupid creature that would freeze in place under the duress of a simultaneous sneak attack, never realizing how inadvertently positioned for a sweeping sunder.

Lightning crackled and cut through their armor as the ardent edge of an ax came swing underneath their plates. It was as quick as striking thunder, precisely as a nearby thunder crashing down nearby.

Their fencing jabs never hit anything more than glancing blows to her cobalt suit, showcased by shimmering silver that chipped small splinters off it.

Lightning crept up and down their bodies, sapping the whole of their strength, paralyzing their limb like a flash-freezing breeze biting at them. They crashed on the floor, stained by the dirt sprouted...with him among them.

Their face contorted in fright as she walked among them, her face entombed in a deathly helm. It was a skull hidden by yet another layer of blue, only the hollow eye sockets and cheekbones that were visible, giving her an uncomfortable grin just barely noticeable.

It only served to add to the creeping terror, between the falling thunder nearby and her eyes scrutinizing as if she was searching for--

And then, she lifted him. Remembered his face, remembered his weapon. The eyes that peeked out from her entombed head narrowed in a galvanizing glare.

They winced as he grunted, feeling her ax cutting through his plates like butter. Tasting his flesh, but drawing no blood. No, the blue hue of mana was the silver chopping tool's want. She remembered the man who shed her husband's blood long ago. Took his arm. Made him feel worthless as he heaped him and others to a decrepit villa to die. So, she took his essence. Deeply. Let it wander out in the land. Dropped his floppy body on the floor to either be rescued...or preyed on by another monster.

His twitching eyes, weakened by the ordeal, widened by the steep crack of her greaves crashing down on his once-pristine blade gifted from a distant emissary of the golden city.

"No...you..." His sheepish look was pierced back by her staunch glare, gazed at him the whole time she plucked its remains. He was never going to see it again. What would they say to his loss? What would they then say to his failure to keep a gift of theirs stolen by someone like her? She didn't care a wit about his potential fate. Not by the way she walked away, never bothering to look back to the struggling man reaching out for his blade, stolen by his conqueror...

"You were weak and broken. You can't fight, you can't cast. You are a useless thing that was fit to rot in some gutter like a broken doll. But that was and is their waste. Their grievous waste. I knew that when I plucked you from this pit they call a villa."

Her embrace tightens only enough to make her words punctuate "But, forget them. You are here and you have made me feel more fulfilled than I ever could have by myself. You cannot fight, but you can mend every wound I endure. You can cook every meal that gives me strength and fills me with purpose. You keep the nest of our coupling stainless and warm when a warrior comes tired from the hunt. Every slight I have evaporates when I fall in your arms. Every hurting muscle that aches on my body oozes away in your care. The hostility of the jungle, the swamp, the outdoor...everything sheds away when I step into the place where my beloved is waiting, always a step ahead of my needs and wants."

"Heh..." The warmth of her voice and touch pour into Jeshua. What she said was true: keeping someone of her caliber and frequency was no easy thing. To hear that he was doing a splendid job at this, to begin with, even while still getting used to was nothing he could swerve from so casually "...you're saying this like it's some big deal."

"To me it is..." She puffs a deep breath. Even with his face deep on her bust, Jeshua can feel her puffing stare eyeing elsewhere. A reminder he wouldn't need to be told after this was that while adept at the craft, amazons often felt a missing factor when tending to their households, hunts, or expedition. She had it now, presented in the form of a man who was dumped into a jade lake to recover and molded a new arm as others were feet, hands, or even parts of their torso. Parts lost to abuse and ravages of weapon-wielding psychopaths while still surviving the ordeal. If this was not the monument of someone that held him dearly in her eyes...

"I know, Mimi. This is why I'm doing this." The man presses his head deeper on her chest, letting that previous angst flutter and stutter apart. Not many men can claim to have a chiseled maiden of wild grace and thunder, untouched by the filth of her dwelling despite its temperament, at his care and tender mercy...let alone being espoused with one.

Her thick, galvanizing tail rattles in pleasure at his surfaced touch. She felt the familiar touch of the man that held her in high tune "You don't need to strain yourself so much with this. You know I hate seeing you so down. It made me think that you'd fled or felt downtrodden with me."

At these words, Jeshua moved from her welcoming chest, weaving his silver hand on her cheek, straying her eyes from the ground that she was looking at "Mimi, I could never feel this way with you. Not with anyone going to such length to graft an entire arm on me, or trusting me to their care. I'm sorry I made it feel like that."

"Hmm...~ A smirk chiseled across her bronzed lips. They parted with allure, a delicate scent seeping from between the glistening pair. With her deep blue irises staring deep at his green ones, her intent was clear, made clearer with her arms swarming behind his nape.

"I'll need more comfort than this...~

"Hehe, of course. That is why I'm here for..." It was obvious from how she approached her eyes closed. Their lips connected in a smooch. A long, panting, smoldering smooch that hid none of the fervency between them. The people outside the spiraling settlements could only ever see a stoic, hushed warrior in cobalt armor and the cracking thunder beneath her feet. That inside, however, outside their domain could see as much as the pride that trailed behind her and her lone wing. But nothing more. None bar the man who patched, fed, and held her close could ever hope to see the flaunted visage of a warrior in delight. Save perhaps for mothers and fathers.

"Huah...ooh, my Jessy, you are such a delightful kisser. I feel all my worries washing away the rain whether we join like this.~ Her pants following their separation is a content one, always happy to lock lips with her caregiver.

"Heh...I'm the one that should be saying that, Mimi." Rarely Jeshua could hide just how enthralled he was with these humble moments "Although, you're probably hungry right now."

"Hungry? I mean--" The depth of her stomach grumble, immediately putting a halt to her dissuasion "...well..."

"Thought so. Good thing I made something before wrapping up here." A steamy plate of oozing goods awaited on a hidden compartment, sure not to suffer the blowback of his alchemy. It was a standard two-plate supper fermented with the best pieces of hunted wildness and plucked vegetables, ready to be ravaged.

"Hehe, you think of everything." She scoots over, still under the duress of her growling stomach, garnishing herself on the palpable 'feast' of meat and fruits, perfectly cooked, perfectly cut, no matter the number of things that needed doing.

His vials still needed work. She denied him the burden of toiling this day. 'You can finish them later', she said, cupping his attention over the rest of the waning evening in on-the-terrain potion grafting. An excuse for her to learn more about his craft. An excuse to feel his body guiding hers to the small details of the very basics.

Then, as with every night coming on, tiredness and the yearning for closeness called to her throbbing heart...among other parts. An irresistible compulsion to take his hand in the incoming darkness and lure him to the bedroom. Her strong weight was naught but feathers in bed, feeling no heavier than the blanket that covered the two, a testament to her inhuman body control.

Here, Mirandelles laid on her spouse, the tide of feminity that hid behind her warrior's demeanor washed over him like rising water to meet the sand. Hands locked and a hand on her waist, Jeshua left the waking world alongside his amazon maiden like grains of sand on a shore...