Tulian Republic

  Capital

  Four and a Half Months Until Spring

  A couple weeks after her meeting with Amarat's church, Sara was clicking down the cobblestones of Tulian upon Trot. She'd been forcing herself to take the horse out around the city, to accustom herself more to riding. Evie rode in the saddle with her, Hurlish and her own steed nimbly trotting beside them as close as possible. Hurlish was bent over in the saddle to look at Sara's chicken scratch sketch as they meandered through the early morning mist, enjoying a few minutes of privacy in the empty streets before the day truly began. Sara angled the paper as best she could for the orc's benefit, pointing to different spots she expected to find trouble with.

  "See, there? The cross-bracing is strong for most use cases, but I'm worried about wind if a typhoon came through."

  "Why's it gotta stand alone, though?" Hurlish asked, circling the web of support beams with a fingernail. "If you built it into nearby buildings, you wouldn't have to worry about half this shit."

  "Sure, but that'd defeat the point. This is supposed to be a standard design that can be put up anywhere we want. I want to have a few teams going around to each vilge over a certain size and building them one. Having them do a custom job each time would take forever."

  Hurlish leaned back up in the saddle, satisfied with her comprehension of the designs. "If that's the case, then I dunno what you could do about wind. There's not a whole lot that wood can do against typhoons."

  Sara frowned, looking the designs over again. In a practical, mundane sort of way, Hurlish was right. They were discussing designs for water towers, a subtle need that she'd noticed as she'd acquainted herself with the army's healers. A considerable chunk of a healer's time in more populous areas was consumed with walking from well to well, casting purification spells upon the water to ward off tropical diseases that would otherwise run rampant. Sara had hoped to conserve the healer's energies and time by building centralized plumbing, with windmills pumping water into a singur reservoir that could be purified in one go. Not only would it considerably improve public health, pursuing the project would begin to build the corp of engineers she'd need for more complex pns on the horizon.

  The problem was, as was often the case in Tulian, the climate. A water tower fit to service an entire vilge would require a drum rge enough to turn into a billowing sail, just waiting to be tossed like a ragdoll the moment the first typhoon blew through. This year's storm season had been light, apparently, but she wasn't stupid enough to assume the same would be true of the next. Sara would have the infrastructure built to st.

  How, exactly, she was to build a wooden tower and windmill capable of withstanding hundred mile an hour winds? Sara couldn't say. This was a world of magic, however, and she had a world of technology crammed into her skull. Somewhere in the mix must be a solution, even if she couldn't find it herself. After a moment of contemptive silence, Hurlish spoke up.

  "Your welding stuff goin' any better?"

  Sara lifted a hand from the reins to make a so-so gesture. "There's progress, but it's hard to practice. I can only cast the spell twice a day, and doing it takes a big chunk out of my self-defense options until I recharge. The few times I've had a chance, I wasn't able to practice for long. Pretty sure I could have kept it up for a while, but only time'll tell if I'm right."

  Hurlish nodded, watching the buildings pass them by with a distracted expression. The 'welding' Hurlish referred to was something the smith was eager to see, enticed by Sara's stories of her old profession on earth, and it was half the purpose for their outing today. For a medieval bcksmith like Hurlish, the idea of taking two cooled pieces of metal and attaching them in an instant was fairytale magic, the kind of bad story she'd call someone a moron for believing in. It was really only after Sara had produced her first marginal result that Hurlish had really taken a shine to the idea, her mild interest morphing to impatience before the demonstration was over.

  But gluing two iron ingots together did not a water tower make. Even the simplest of joints had been a failure, her "downclocked" version of the Lightning spell proving utterly uncontrolble. What Sara was attempting wasn't even that complicated according to Garen's letters, no matter how much she expined the way it felt impossible. The enigmatic mage refused to divulge his whereabouts, but the letters arrived on Sara's desktop with regurity nonetheless, all her guards testifying that no one had entered or left. Her responses, in turn, were just written on the back of the papers and left in a locked drawer, where they eventually vanished.

  When Sara had told Garen that her first attempt at a basic p joint had producing a fingernail-sized piece of sg and a ringing in her ears that sted hours, his reply had come within the hour, mostly filled with diplomatically restrained mirth. A mythical Champion failing something so simple to him? He'd been more than amused.

  Sara had written back that a microsecond fsh of heat rivaling the sun was impressive, but such a brief spike of power was as useful for welding as a sledgehammer was for pottery. If he wished for further demonstrations of what that sledgehammer was capable of, he was welcome to come and be a test subject for so amusing a project. Garen had, unsurprisingly, declined.

  "If you can manage to figure welding out," Hurlish eventually said, speaking slowly as she worked through her thoughts, "You could solve a lot of problems with that stuff. It'd be impossible to make a metal beam long enough for the whole support structure by casting. No way you could avoid uneven cooling. Thing'd be brittle as gss. But I could pour several smaller pieces for you to weld together, so that the final version is wide enough to serve as a brace. They'd be heavy as hell to transport, but we'd have something that can be added by carpenters on-site."

  Sara followed Hurlish's words on her sketch, tracing the idea with a finger. It'd be a ramshackle job compared to the actual water towers Sara had helped build back on Earth, but... it made sense. The weakness induced by multiple welds would drive her crazy, but the end product would still outdo wood by a long shot. Hurlish's idea was modur, replicable, and able to kept on hand until needed. A neat solution with few appreciable fws to Sara's experienced eyes, it was an answer befitting a far more modern viewpoint than Sara expected out of a medieval bcksmith.

  Sara guided Trot back over to Hurlish's side, looking up at her as if suspicious. "You sure picked up this stuff fast, didn't you? You got an engineering degree I didn't know about or something?"

  "Nope," Hurlish chuckled. She tapped her temple. "Just spent a long time at the forge. Smithing levels ain't just for decoration, y'know?"

  "Well, it's a good idea. Great, actually, fits the problem perfectly." Sara cocked her head. "So how come you came up with it?"

  Hurlish scowled. "Fuck's that mean?"

  "I mean, it's surprising. Of all the smiths we've worked with, you've been the most reluctant to try out mass-production type stuff."

  "Doesn't mean I don't get it. Just that I don't like it." Hurlish spat to the side, to emphasize the point. "'Sides, most of the sort from the Guild haven't been my level. I got a lot going for me that they don't, when it comes to figurin' out new things."

  "Like what? I've been meaning to ask people about non-combat csses for a while, but they're always been other crap to do, and most people would just get offended. What do levels in Bcksmithing get you?"

  "Plenty of things, just like any other css," Hurlish shrugged. "Not as fshy as combat sorts, of course, but just as helpful. Working with my pa in the middle of nowhere like we were, one of the first skills I got was one that let me sniff out bad ore. Pa loved that one, always made me check each little chunk before he got to melting it down."

  "Wait, as in you literally smelled the rocks?"

  Hurlish ughed. "Nah, nah, not like that. Just looked at 'em and knew they were nasty. Like lookin' at a dog crapping in your shoes, I guess? They just felt off. Later skills got better, of course. I could swing my hammer harder, go at it for longer, that sort of thing. Like I said, nothing fshy, but useful as all the hells. Nowadays..."

  Hurlish paused for thought. "I guess the best thing I've noticed is with the little stuff. My hands stopped shaking when I was tryin' to do detail work, and I started being able to see things I couldn't before. 'S how I made Evie's sword, or at least the hand guard for it."

  Evie lifted a hand, obligingly summoning the weapon. The basket that protected the rapier's grip was meticulously shaped, paper-thin, with dozens of empty spaces cut out in floral patterns to lighten the weapon without sacrificing protection.

  "It has served me surprisingly well," Evie admitted, turning the weapon in her hand. "I dare say you would have had a pce in the capital's Smithing Guild some distant day, Hurlish."

  "Damn, girl. That was almost a compliment."

  Evie sniffed, dismissing the weapon. Sara chuckled lightly, earning a brief prick of cws against her ribs.

  "So you think you could help with some of the rger projects?" Sara asked. "I've got a lot of know-how and experience building big stuff, but that was with a lot of tools and materials that I don't have here. Steel's way too expensive to use for rebar and I-beams, so I'll have to substitute wood everywhere I can. Will any of your bcksmithing sixth senses help me make sure I'm not about to make a very expensive pile of rubble?"

  "Maybe. Y'gotta remember, I was pretty specialized. I built weapons. Period. Not armor, not tools, not anything that's not used for hitting something you want dead. But..." Hurlish scratched a tusk. "I can tell when a weapon's too weak for fighting, even if I didn't make it. Mainly used that for teaching apprentices once I was in Hagos, finding the impurities they didn't hammer out right. No guarantees, but I can try taking a look at things like your water tower there. Maybe I'll find something you missed."

  "I'd want your opinion regardless. Any magical aid's just a bonus."

  "Sounds good to me."

  They reached a crossroads just as the sun finished pulling itself off the horizon line. Light bounced off the clouds gathering for the morning rain, beams breaking through the scattered drops that began to fall. The street began to darken, mists dissolving into a light shower. They flipped their hoods up, pulling their horses to a stop. Evie dismounted from Trot, narrowing her eyes at the way the animal skittered away when it caught sight of her ears and tail.

  "Even a slug should have learned better by now," Evie said.

  "You can't bme him," Sara said defensively, patting Trot on the neck. "You're just as dangerous as any tiger. He's got a right to be skittish."

  "I killed my first tiger years ago, Master. I'm far more dangerous than any overgrown housecat."

  "All the more reason you can't bme him." Sara watched Evie linger beside Trot. "You sure you're cool with us splitting up?"

  "Of course, Master. You and Hurlish are perfectly capable of defending yourselves in my absence."

  "Sounds like you're trying to convince yourself," Hurlish noted.

  "Of course I am," Evie said snippily. "As Master is so fond of stating, my paranoia knows no bounds."

  "You can come with us, if you want," Sara offered. "Not much for you to do at the forge, but I don't mind."

  Evie huffed. "Of course you wouldn't. Vesta, on the other hand, would object vehemently. She hasn't a quarter of the staff she is accustomed to, and the records are growing thick enough to drown in. Her children's reports need to be collected as well, not to mention fresh tasking to be assigned for their efforts in the future, which is a duty I trust to none but you or I." Evie blew out another long breath, tail thumping irritably beneath her raincoat. Despite her own protests, she looked half ready to hop back up into Trot's saddle.

  Sara offered a wry smile. "The curse of competence. For what it's worth, I appreciate it. You and Vesta are holding this whole city together with your bare hands."

  "That and a Champion's endorsement, yes." Evie shook rainwater off her hood, turning to head down the street. "Enjoy your date, Master. I will see you sometime in the evening. And I expect to be duly compensated."

  "When have I ever failed you?"

  Evie turned and tossed a two-fingered wave over her shoulder, departing from Sara and Hurlish's company.

  Hurlish chuckled as they got back on their way.

  "For as much as she compins, you'd think she'd just stop dealing with paperwork. She knows you wouldn't force her to do it."

  "It may not be her favorite, but she knows she's good at it. There's plenty of satisfaction in doing anything well, even if the work itself isn't fun."

  "Speaking from experience?"

  Sara snorted. "Yeah. My whole life up till four and a half months ago. I'm sure forging in the Tulian heat is its own kind of suck, but let me tell you, arc welding in full PPE pulls enough sweat to drown you."

  "Those welders put off a lot of heat, then?"

  "It's the mostly the light you had to worry about, but yeah, plenty of heat. Five thousand degrees or so."

  Hurlish gnced about them before leaning closer, voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "What's a degree?"

  Sara ughed. "Oh yeah, of course. My bad. I'm so used to talking shop with you that I forget how much is different. Degrees are a measure of temperature, how hot something is. Basic stuff, not anything from my old world I'd need to keep secret. Zero degrees is when water freezes into ice, and a hundred is when it starts to boil."

  Hurlish made a face. "So five thousand sucks shit, then."

  "Yeah. Iron melts at fifteen hundred, so take what you imagine the center of your forge feels like and kick it up a few notches. Of course welding is heating a lot smaller point, so it's still probably not as hot."

  "Think you'll be able to hang in the forge, then?" Hurlish asked. "Most apprentices I've had tapped out pretty quick, their first day. You've messed around a bit, but that wasn't when the fires were at full."

  "I'm sure I'll manage. I reserve the right to compin, though."

  Hurlish chuckled. "Remember, we're working at the Guild. There'll be plenty of spectators, even if they're gonna be pretending they're not looking."

  "Yeah, well, they can suck it. We'll say it's humanizing or something, to see their leader whining like a little girl."

  "If you say so."

  They continued down the streets as the rain pattered on, their horses given a wide berth by the shopkeepers and other workers forced out into the morning rain by their occupations. The Smithing Guild's headquarters had been built rather close to the center of the city, a prime location afforded by the importance of their bor. By now Sara had nearly every street and alleyway in Tulian memorized, and so she guided herself without thought, arriving shortly.

  Tiled roofs held up by thick wooden pilrs were pced in semicircle rows across a cobblestone courtyard, each pavilion cimed by a particurly experienced smith and their apprentices. The forges were arranged around a central stockpile, where smithing materials like charcoal, iron, and other raw materials were piled high. Those were communal materials, paid for by the Tulian state, and were freely avaible for any project relevant to government work. Beside the stockpiles were a multitude of other vendors, unaffiliated with the government, selling whatever they thought the smiths might need or want.

  Unlike many of the other business of Tulian, the smiths had begun their work at the crack of dawn. By the looks of it, Sara and Hurlish were among the st to arrive. As expected, their arrival caused a bit of a stir, particurly among the younger apprentices, who paused their work to whisper and point. Sara paid them no mind, heading for Hurlish's own forge.

  In a rare dispy of nepotism from Sara, her girlfriend's forge was by far the best equipped in the courtyard. She justified it by saying that Hurlish was among the city's most skilled smiths, and therefore had earned the right for the first pick of Tulian's limited equipment.

  It was an excuse so reasonable that Sara could almost believe it herself.

  Stepping under the pavilion's shade, Sara shucked off her raincoat while Hurlish moved to shovel charcoal into the hearth. Sara had spent a good few afternoons in Hurlish's forge, following along with her work, but she was incredibly far from achieving anything of substance. She'd managed a few decent nails, some spikes for her wristbands, and even once managed to hammer out a knife that didn't immediately snap in half the second it hit something harder than swiss cheese.

  That was about it, though. Those multitudes of failures and occasional mediocre successes were why she was so eager to begin work today. Because today, she actually had something that might be worth contributing.

  Hurlish finished shoveling coal into the hearth, but refrained from lighting it. Instead she went to her pile of half-completed projects, selecting several pieces and putting them before Sara. They were simple shortswords, patterned off of Ignite's preferred weapon, a gdius. Hurlish had created a shocking volume of them over the st few months, most of them fwless, save for these two. Though Sara couldn't find it, they apparently had some kind of imperfection, egregious enough that Hurlish had refused to send them to the army quartermasters.

  "Think these'll do?" Hurlish asked.

  "I don't see why not. You sure they're fine to waste? They look fine to me."

  "They're garbage. They'd snap the first time they had to swing at anything, I promise."

  "If you say so," Sara said, picking up the two swords. She took them over to a set of cmps, pinning them in pce with the ft of their bdes touching. After checking the angle a few times, she reached down and drew her sword, examining the bde.

  "I should really give this thing a name," Sara thought aloud, turning the bck bde in her hands. "It's definitely earned one by now."

  Hurlish made a face. "You're really gonna be the type to name your sword?"

  "Why not? I'm the literal Drama Queen, Hurlish. Pomp and circumstance is part of the deal."

  "Yeah, well, I'm not going to give you any ideas. Just don't name it like the nobles back in Hagos did. I swear, if I'd given another boring-ass longsword to some entitled brat just to have them name it something like 'Evil's Bane' or some shit, I'd have gone insane."

  Sara ughed, finishing her inspection of the sword. "Fine, fine. I'll at least give it some thought, I promise."

  "No edgy shit," Hurlish repeated.

  "No edgy shit," Sara agreed.

  Sara took her sword in both hands, folding it out to its full length. Several of the other smiths in nearby pavilions, recalling her previous practice sessions, began hurriedly lowering their forge's storm shutters. Sara picked up the mask Hurlish had made her, a steel visor with several inches of bck-tinted gss covering her eyes, and took deep, calming breaths.

  The mysterious reservoir of magic lingering somewhere in her skull was an illusive thing, difficult at the best of times to access, and that was when she was fiddling with Champion's abilities. Her "actual" magic, so to speak, the kind that anyone with the right training could replicate, was buried far deeper. A pulsating mass of colorless energy that ebbed and flowed, faint tendrils reaching out to subtly feed off all the living world around her. That reservoir had been wrapped in steel with the key thrown away, as if Amarat had stapled training wheels into Sara's skull. The goddess' blessing was a canal that diverted her energies in the appropriate direction with no effort of her own, and while that was once an incredible boon, it was now limiting her.

  So Sara felt out the walls of that canal, skated her thoughts along its harsh edges and perfect form, mustered her willpower, and began digging.

  Lightning crackled its way into existence, miniature bolts forking from the back of her knuckles to tch onto the bck bde. From there they raced downward, the scent of ozone joining a reverberating hum as the current rose, wrapping the bde in oscilting white tendrils. Sara stood frozen through the whole process, all her mind turned inward, fighting to hold back the explosion of power that Amarat's guidance was trying to shove forth. The bde began to glow with heat, so bright that it cast flickering shadows across the forge, and still she kept steady, fighting ingrained instincts.

  Slowly, degree by degree, the lightning began to stabilize. Sara could feel the heat wafting off the sword, creating a blurred mirage that floated skyward. Several of the bcksmiths that had taken cover, hearing no explosion, began peaking out from whatever cover they had taken, whispering to one another.

  The only reaction Sara cared about, however, was Hurlish. The massive orc was watching Sara with hunger in her eyes. This was magic that no one in the world had seen before, of a type that Sara had developed specifically for Hurlish, and that dedication certainly wasn't going unappreciated. Hurlish was silent, allowing Sara to concentrate, but she could feel the orc's fervent focus as clearly as if they were pressed skin-to-skin.

  The lightning hum began to level out, reminiscent of a powerline's buzz. Sara took a careful step forward, attention split between the outer world and inner. She twisted her grip on the sword, aiming the tip towards the point where the two gdiuses met, and slowly pushed forward.

  Sparks immediately began to fly, electric arcs leaping from the tip of her sword to the metal. It would have been blinding if not for the makeshift welding mask, and even still Sara had to squint, eyes watering. The heat was extraordinary, five feet of enchanted metal rocketing to a temperature that would have quite literally boiled more mundane steel. The hair along Sara's arms curled and bckened, smoke filling the air, but she kept going, well past the point that her old self would have colpsed from heatstroke. Even as her skin reddened and Hurlish was forced back by the heat, Sara's hands remained steady, drawing a bead down the joint between the two sbs of metal.

  She reached the bottom of her weld just as the heat began to overwhelm her. She severed the spell's energy with a gasp, stumbling back. There was a final loud crack as the remainder of the Lightning's energy was expelled into the open air, a boom of thunder signaling the end of her experiment.

  Sara dropped the sword, supporting herself with both hands on her knees as she panted. The scent of singed hair wafted around her, little rivulets of smoke rising from her skin.

  "Goddamn," Hurlish eloquently commented.

  "Yeah," Sara breathed. She forced herself up, inspecting her work.

  It was a nasty, nasty weld. The bead was lopsided and squiggly, melted to thick bck blobs in some pces and vanishingly thin in others. Even while the metal cooled, Sara could tell that the bond was far too weak for any industrial purpose, even weaker than if she'd just riveted the two swords together. Lightning did an awful job of creating shielding gasses, undoubtedly introducing impurities undetectable to the naked eye, but Sara counted herself lucky the process created enough carbon dioxide for the bond to take at all. In all her life, from the very first time she'd picked up a welder, she'd never done such a shoddy job.

  Still, it was a weld. That counted for something. And more importantly than the quality?

  Hurlish's reaction.

  The orc circled the swords in the vice, crouched like a jeweler given opportunity to study the Crown Jewels. Sara knew it was an awful job, but Hurlish didn't have the same perspective. All she saw was two pieces of metal joined in a matter of seconds, entirely eliminating the need for heating, hammering, and all the song and dance of traditional metalworking.

  "How long till it's cool?" Hurlish asked, her usual gruffness repced by an almost girlish glee. "There's no quenching or anything, right?"

  "No quenching. It'll be cool enough to touch in a few minutes."

  "That quick?" Hurlish held up a hand, feeling for heat coming off the bdes. "Damn. Damn, damn, damn. The amount of shit that you could do with this, Sara..."

  "If I can actually keep it up, you mean. Heating my whole sword like that was a recipe for disaster."

  "Ah, there's gotta be a way around that." Hurlish waved the objection aside. "Some kind of cooling enchantments, or a protective suit, or using a different tool for the spell. Whatever it is, we gotta figure it out."

  "That excited, huh? What kind of pns have you got?"

  "Gods know, Sara," Hurlish said, practically vibrating with excitement. "Imagine how much easier it'll be to join armor pieces together. You could have the front and back built as one, without any weak points from the join points. You can get steeper angles to deflect arrows, or you can have two people working separate parts just to join them at the end, or hells, anything. Not to mention all the bigger stuff you talk about, like what you used to do back before you came here."

  Even though she was still recovering from the heat, Sara couldn't help but smile smugly at Hurlish. "Sounds like you're a pretty big fan."

  "You kidding me? We've gotta start finding us some artificers, Sara. There's way too much wasted potential with this."

  Sara ughed. "I'll take that under advisement. Problem is, I can still only do it twice a day, and I already wasted one go."

  "Then you've got another one in you, yeah? What's stopping you?"

  Sara gestured to the hair along her arms, still smoking. "Not a fan of immotion, mainly. We'll have to figure out a better way to cast the spell before I can do anything useful."

  "Then let's get on it," Hurlish said, turning back to the forge. "What do you need to cast a spell with? It's gotta be a weapon, right?"

  Sara watched her girlfriend begin hurriedly preparing the forge. It was funny, seeing the normally reserved Hurlish so excited.

  "A weapon, yeah, according to Garen. And it's got to be my weapon, not just any old sword. Something about the connection between foci and manifestation or whatever. It's why I always use the sword you made me to cast spells. I've got a Connection to it."

  "Then we'll make another one, then, just for welding. What do you think would be good for it?"

  Sara gave it some thought. "A dagger, maybe? The smaller the better, but I think it still has to be a bonafide weapon, for some reason. Maybe a thin knife, with a long handle? That's pretty close to the shape of real welding gear."

  "Let's get on it, then," Hurlish said, reaching for the bellows.

  Sara joined her at the forge, familiar enough with the work by now to help get things up and running. They chatted as they worked, half discussing potential designs for the dagger, half idle comments about whatever came to mind. After spending so much time on the road, in meetings, and wrapped up in her own concerns, Sara found the simple routine a profound relief. For a short while, she was free to worry herself only with what was right in front of her, the pgue of abstract concerns that constantly buzzed through her mind blissfully fading into the background.

  When the coals roared to life, they banished the hellish Tulian humidity in holy fire. Sara's skin that had been exposed during the welding experiment was already reddening from the most severe case of arc fsh she'd ever seen. It was a sensation almost like a fever, leaving her sensitive to the barest change in temperature. At least the impromptu goggles had saved her vision. She could still work, and wouldn't bother with a healing potion unless the fsh burn persisted to the next few days.

  Hurlish fumbled through the many tool drawers that littered her forge, pulling out a thick book of weaponry design. She shoved a thin bar of steel into the coals and brought the book over to Sara, flipping it open.

  "Alright, there's a few options that I think will work best. We don't have much bcksteel left, so we're gonna be a bit more limited on the parameters than we were with your sword."

  Sara leaned against Hurlish's side as the orc thumbed through the book, debating the merits of each dagger design aloud. It was a characteristically utilitarian tome, little more than a few drawings of each weapon beside a list of bde angles, advisable materials, and other relevant minutia. After spending so much time with Hurlish, Sara could even understand most of it.

  "What about that one?" Sara asked, stopping Hurlish from flipping the page.

  "A rondel dagger?" Hurlish asked, squinting at the design. "I guess it could work, but you're not pnning to do much fighting with it, are you?"

  "I don't see why I couldn't. They're for armor busting, aren't they?"

  "Yeah, they are, but considering the size of the sword you're already swinging around, I don't see why you'd need it."

  "For enchanted armor, I guess," Sara said. "The Royal Army is going to have some tough nuts to crack."

  Hurlish grunted contemptively. By her reaction, Sara could guess what she was thinking. As a master weaponsmith, Hurlish took pride in making one instrument for one job, refining it to exacting perfection. Multipurpose tools were a far cry from the elegance she preferred.

  Still, the orc shrugged. "Makes sense, I guess. You're the customer."

  "Am I?" Sara asked teasingly. "I thought I was going to help you forge it."

  "You are, but that just means I ought to charge you more. Getting the product and a lesson? Ain't gonna be cheap."

  Sara smiled wickedly. "Oh, don't worry. I'm sure I can think of plenty of ways to repay you."

  Hurlish snorted. "Not sure those count, considering they were gonna happen anyway, but I'll take it. You ready?"

  "Let's get started."

  Hurlish moved back to the hearth, grabbing a pair of tongs to retrieve the glowing piece of steel within. She brought it over to the anvil, ying its edge atop the bck metal. The anvil that Sara had purchased for Hurlish was one of very few that had remained in Tulian, built to dwarf its Earthly equivalent. The top was covered in a yer of the same enchanted steel that composed Sara's sword, the only material capable of withstanding the hammer blows of an Irregur smith. Hurlish rolled up her sleeves and raised her smithing hammer high, judging the angle. Sara crossed her arms to watch, a small smile on her face.

  Hurlish's muscles bulged as the hammer rocketed down. Sparks flying from the steel as the metal deformed under the blow, a deep divot created in a single strike. The cng rang throughout the courtyard, briefly overpowering all of the other smith's works, deafening Sara to the rain's patter for a brief few seconds. Hurlish took a nearly imperceptible pause to inspect her work, then raised the hammer again, smming it back down.

  Sara, for her part, was entirely content to watch. Hurlish's skin shone with a thin yer of sweat from the forge's heat, highlighting the thick bands of muscles twisting beneath her green skin. Her face was smoothed out by concentration that bordered on the meditative, all the world beyond the steel in her hands blocked out. Sara took the distraction as an opportunity to let her eyes crawl lecherously along Hurlish's body, from the storybook of small scars that encircled her forearms, to the way her chest moved with every swing, as enticing as it was impressive. Sara could physically feel the power of each swing through the soles of her boots, courtyard cobblestones rattling after each hammer blow, and the strength on dispy stirred a heat in her that had nothing to do with the forge's fires.

  "Alright," Hurlish said suddenly, flipping the steel back over. Its edge had been partially pounded into a curve, shockingly smooth considering how few times the smith had struck it. "Your turn. You were paying attention, right?"

  "Yes," Sara lied. She moved to the anvil and accepted the hammer from Hurlish, who kept hold of the tongs holding the steel, flipping it over to the ft side.

  "Get on with it, then. Don't want to let it cool too much."

  Sara raised the hammer, licking her lips in concentration. For all the infrastructure work she'd done in her old life, hammers were comparitvely unfamiliar ground. She twisted it in her grip anxiously, eying the thin edge, and took her first swing.

  The hammer struck true, if with none of the booming force Hurlish had put on dispy.

  Hurlish nodded. "Alright. Keep going."

  Sara raised the hammer once more, took a deep breath, and set to work.

  Under Hurlish's guidance, Sara soon fell into something of a rhythm. She didn't dare try to strike the steel with Hurlish's insane force, if she was even capable of matching it, and instead opted to pound out a much more reasonable series of lighter blows. Hurlish took her by the arm on occasion, adjusting her stance or how she held the hammer.

  When they put the steel back into the forge for reheating, Hurlish used the time to go over Sara's techniques, pressing close behind her to reach around and puppeteer Sara's arms. The height difference between them had Hurlish's considerable breasts pressing into the back of Sara's head, hardly conducive for the focus required to absorb the lessons. If Hurlish realized what she was doing, she showed no sign of it, leaving Sara stumbling her way through the lessons with half an ear.

  Thankfully, her expertise was hardly required. Hurlish all but lifted Sara's limbs for her, a decade spent tutoring apprentices in Hagos showing in the way she coached Sara through each and every motion. Within an hour the dagger had taken its basic shape, quenched in a bucket of oil that sent steam billowing into the air. The next step, that of sharpening the edges, was menial enough that Hurlish entrusted it entirely to Sara, using the time to begin whittling the wooden grip.

  Sara sat before the grindstone with the dagger, pumping it up to speed with her foot. The manual method was technically effective, but agonizingly slow. Sara would have killed for a modern grinder. At the very least, the time-consuming process was simple enough that Hurlish brought up a stool next to her, chatting through the process. Sometimes the topics meandered towards the productive and practical, what with how work consumed both their lives, but often it was casual comments on mundane inanities, like the odd hairstyles and clothing that had been popping up since Sara's takeover of Tulian.

  "I swear," Hurlish was saying as Sara's grindstone sent sparks flying, "His hair came up to here. I don't even know what he put in it to get it to stick like that."

  "We had some products back in my old world that would do the job. Here? No idea."

  "Did you ever use 'em to make your hair into a donut?"

  "Not that in particur, but close. Usually when I went to a concert and didn't want to stand out by looking too boring."

  "Oh yeah? And what qualified as 'not too boring' back there?"

  "Not too different from this," Sara said, looking down at herself. She was wearing a bck crocodile leather jacket over a low-cut shirt tailored to hang lower than some skirts, so she wouldn't be rocking the full cm show in her skintight leggings. "A bit more cohesive, of course. And more hair dye."

  Hurlish eyed Sara's curls, which were dark as an oil spill. "Hard to imagine anything dying your hair."

  "I was a dirty blonde back on Earth, but I always dyed it some kind of crazy color, mostly because the old welding hands at work hated that. It wasn't just my style that changed when I got summoned, y'know. Amarat took some liberties." Sara lifted the dagger from the grindstone, tracing the shape of her old body in the air. "Frumpier, a bit shorter, biceps a bit thicker, maybe. Hair barely down to my neck, if I didn't tie it up, which wasn't often. Also, chubbier. A lot chubbier. Stressful job, y'know?"

  Hurlish chuckled. "Butch, then."

  "The butchest," Sara confirmed.

  "Still managed to pull girls, looking like that?"

  "You kidding?" Sara rolled the dagger along the back of her knuckles. "Sure, I had some heft to me, but I had enough scars to get 'em curious after a couple gnces. Then I could tell 'em I do welding, flex my biceps to prove it, show off a few scars on my fingers and mention how good I was with 'em, and before you knew it, bang. Plenty of girls in gay bars looking for someone that can toss them around."

  "Evie," Hurlish snorted. Sara ughed. Hurlish fshed her own grin, then continued on. "Gay bars, huh? Can't say I knew of any in Hagos. Seems like a hell of a lot easier way to pick up girls than waggling your eyebrows and hoping they swing your way."

  "Oh, man, you're missing out."

  "I believe you. Almost wish I coulda met you back then, so I got the full Sara experience."

  Sara put the dagger back to the grindstone, studying the edge and its sparks. The full Sara experience, huh, Hurlish? Tepidly, as if hesitant, she said, "Y'know, there is one thing we could do tonight, since Evie will probably be out te."

  Catching the lie in Sara's supposed ck of enthusiasm, as well as the peculiarity of specifically excluding Evie, Hurlish froze in her whittling. "Oh?"

  "Not that I'm keeping secrets from her, of course," Sara hurriedly said. "Just something she wouldn't strictly approve of." Sara flipped the dagger to the other side, feeling a sly grin slip up her face. "A pet project of mine, helped along by some of the chiller of Amarat's sorts."

  "You can color me interested, Sara. What exactly could you be up to that Evie wouldn't approve of? Something that's actually got you working with that madhouse?"

  Sara mimicked Hurlish's own impish grin, pulling the dagger off the wheel and holding its end out for the orc to grab. "You'll see tonight. Trust me, I think you'll be a fan."

  ---------------------------

  Sara looked both ways before crossing the road, squinting into the darkness to make sure they weren't followed. Darkness had fallen in Tulian, leaving starlight bouncing off the puddles of a thunderstorm that had ended a few minutes before. Seeing that the way was clear, she hurried out into the street, tugging Hurlish along behind her.

  "Ain't seen you skulk this much in your life," the orc noted, even as she bent her shoulders to commit her own version of stealth.

  "Again, it's nothing illegal," Sara insisted, dipping beneath the cover of a ratty awning. "Pces like this, though, they tend to get ruined if they get popur."

  Sara bumped her steel-toed boots against a rotten set of boards covering what looked at first gnce to be a half-started ditch. Hurlish crouched behind her, looking rather confused until the boards suddenly removed themselves, revealing a steep set of stairs spiraling downward. A face popped out, dark in skintone and expression.

  "What's she?" The woman asked, jutting her head to Hurlish.

  "Bigger than you," Sara replied, shoving past.

  "Fair 'nough," the bouncer said, stepping aside to allow Hurlish entry.

  "Godsdamn," Hurlish grunted as she squeezed into the narrow spiral stairway, "This shit wasn't built with orcs in mind, was it?"

  "I don't think it was built with anyone at all in mind," Sara grunted back, pressing a hand to the wall to keep herself from tumbling down the slick stones. It was pitch bck. "Just keep shoving. It won't colpse, probably."

  "Lovely."

  Sara did her best to keep her clothes clean of grime as wispy smoke began to seep up from below, filling her nose with a pungent scent unique to Tulian pipes. As they went Sara rolled up her shirt, pinning it in pce so her ass was on full dispy, and tugged out her jacket's colr so it was nearly drooping over off her shoulders. A wad of spit in her hands was all it took to add a few disorganized lumps and spikes to her hair, complimented by tucking the tail beneath her colr, so it looked like she'd cut it as short. The impromptu efforts wouldn't have done jackshit, but for Amarat's blessings. If nothing else, Sara's patron goddess pyed well with costume changes.

  Sara cwed out into the open air well ahead of Hurlish, spinning around and making a few st second adjustments before the orc arrived. That done, she waited with hands on her hips, silhouetted by a rainbow of bouncing lights behind her.

  --------------------------------------------------------------------

  Hurlish

  --------------------------------------------------------------------

  The damn fucking tunnel Sara'd dragged her into was exactly as the technically-big-for-a-human had described. Not built for fucking anyone. Hurlish scraped and bounced off the corners as they went, because of course a round fucking spiral staircase had to have corners, but only occasionally, because whatever mason had built it was clearly high off their shit while they'd worked. Probably off the very pipes Hurlish could smell right now, a dozen of the nasty little fuckers clogging her up the closer to the godsforsaken bottom of this pit–

  The hells was that?

  Hurlish pulled up short as she spotted the end of the staircase, where light was spilling out from an oval entryway. Not just flickering yellow ntern light, but all kinds of colors, red, blue, green and purple turning the grimy stones into a shattered church window. Faintly, rendered dull by the intervening stones, was the sound of music, pyed on familiar instruments, yet in a wholly unfamiliar style.

  Where in the godsdamn did that girl drag me?

  Hurlish took the final few steps, bending under the stone archway as her eyes adjusted to a spray of irregur lighting.

  She could see why they'd gone so far down, for starters. The ceiling was thirty feet above, with a ptform dangling above. Musicians of all sorts were clustered together, facing outward to the rest of the... tavern, Hurlish supposed? But not any kind of tavern she'd known. It even had a miniature theatre stage, empty as it was aside from a strange shining pole. Beneath the musician's ptform dangled a sphere absolutely wrecked by colored gems, bouncing to the beat of the time-keeping stomps. The bar was dug into the wall, leaving more room for a marble-tiled floor, which was packed with people dancing to the beat of lively percussion. Colors danced with them, highlighting thrown limbs and sweaty smiles in brief fshes. When a stronger beam of light wasn't on any one person, Hurlish could barely make out their figures, so dim and filled with smoke was the room. Only one stood out at the edge of the crowd, facing Hurlish with a smug grin.

  Sara, naturally.

  Her partner had both fists on her hips at the edge of the bouncing crowd, busying herself by watching Hurlish gawk. Her shirt had been rolled up, her colr yanked out, and her hair... no, she hadn't cut it, right? Gods, Hurlish hoped not. Her jacket was thrown open, her belt moved to be tied under her breasts, emphasizing a figure that Hurlish had committed memory months ago, but very rarely saw in public these days.

  Hurlish was observant enough to realize what the woman had done.

  Sara had turned back the clock. She was dressed up just like she'd described her old self, even adding a bit of puff to her shirt for an authentic fb to her build. Only the color of her hair hadn't been changed, not that Hurlish could really be sure of that, considering the spray of random colors shining from every direction.

  "Well?" Sara hollered. "Welcome to the First Light! Tulian's one and only nightclub!"

  "The hell's a nightclub?" Hurlish asked, moving closer so she could be heard without yelling. Damn, that band was going hard on percussion. Could barely hear the strings over the pounding of the drums.

  "Back on Earth? The best pce to get smashed and wake up in a stranger's bed. Here?" Sara shrugged, waving to the miniature sea behind her, where dozens bumped and ground against one another. "Well. Not much different, it looks like. They picked up on it pretty quick."

  Sara suddenly took Hurlish by the wrist, dragging her towards one of the walls, where beer-strewn seats were provided for patrons to rest their feet between bouts of ecstatic dancing. Hurlish was disoriented enough that she found herself being easily tripped into a spin, nding back-first on a booth. Before she could recover her thoughts, Sara was straddling her, taking both her tusks in either hand as she pressed her lips into Hurlish's.

  She slumped into the kiss on instinct, lips parting so she could taste Sara's lips. Cherry, Sara had called it. Hurlish had never tried the fruit itself, but she sure as shit approved of it on Sara's lips.

  Sara jerked Hurlish's face closer, using her tusks as handles in a way that had a low rumble running up her throat. Hurlish chased Sara's tongue into her mouth, taking a deeper taste of her. Hurlish pressed a palm against the smaller girl's back, shoving her in, and set to proving she hadn't been that taken off guard.

  They stayed like that for longer than Hurlish would ter want to admit, pressed chest-to-chest atop a beer-soaked booth.

  When Hurlish began to nip and suck at Sara's lips, pulling back to nibble her way down her jawline, the damnable woman pulled back, breathing hard. It was difficult to see in the "nightclub" lighting, but Hurlish knew from panting breath hitting her face that Sara's eyes were darkened with lust.

  "The hells was that?" Hurlish asked, breathing hard herself, if not quite as out of breath. She looked about. "We're in public, aren't we?"

  "Barely," Sara breathed, "And besides, we're far from the only ones." Hurlish's right tusk was yanked once more, directing her attention to the couple two seats further down. Of what Hurlish could see, it was a half-elf woman throwing herself over some hapless man beneath, all that could be seen of the fellow a pair of hands tched onto her ass. Hurlish's attention was jerked another way, where one willowy man was strewn across the ps of two off-duty Guardsmen, their uniforms disheveled as they took turns feeding the fellow fruits.

  Hurlish's focus was wrenched back to Sara. "Don't worry about it, Hurlish. I'm pretty sure even I wouldn't be up for some of the stuff these booths have seen." Sara peeled her chest off of Hurlish's slowly, adjusting her jacket for a moment before standing. She held out a hand.

  "Still," Hurlish stood with a grunt, "That was some show you gave anyone that cared enough to look."

  "Hurlish, honey, your concern is wonderful, but political peacocking is the st thing on my mind in here." Sara began tugging her to the bar. "Before spring comes, I'll bet good money half this club will be able to paint my tits by memory."

  Hurlish stumbled. "How in the hells are they gonna be seeing those, anyway?"

  Sara answered with a devilish grin. "Someone's gotta teach the strippers how it's done, right?"

  Between the furious kiss not yet a minute old and the mental image of Sara bared on a stage before dozens, Hurlish was lightheaded enough to not even notice they'd reached the bar. The realization was abruptly forced on her when her stomach bumped against it.

  "I'll take something to get me trashed, and I'm paying for hers," Sara said to the bartender, who'd abandoned their previous patrons the moment he saw Sara approaching. The bartender looked to Hurlish expectantly even as he began to fill a– was that a fucking silver goblet?– full from the lowest barrel on the wall.

  "What... what do you have? Mead?" Hurlish asked thickly as she worked her way through her bewilderment, eying the barrels. They were beled, but a damn vampire couldn't have read them in this gloom.

  "What kind?" Asked the bartender, sliding Sara her drink in exchange for a few more copper pieces than it was likely worth. "We got local stock, Sporaton Mead, Bragger's Mead–"

  "You got the deep south shit?" Hurlish asked, suddenly inspired. "From the jungle wall, enough honey to choke you?"

  As if affronted to have their selection question, the bartender answered only by snagging another (considerably rger) goblet, filling it from one of the closest barrels. He handed it to Hurlish, pocketed the coin Sara slid him, and was on his way.

  Hurlish looked down at the silvery goblet in her hand, then promptly threw her head back.

  "Godsdamn!" Hurlish swore, wiping her mouth. "That's real jungle mead." She tapped her fingernail against the goblet a few hard times, then held it up, inspecting it. "Real silver, too. What in the nine hells have you built here, Sara?"

  "Something to put the old nobility's leftovers to use," Sara replied, sliding onto a barstool. Hurlish did the same, and Sara leaned into her side, to be easily heard. "You never wondered what we did with all those gems, when we found out they weren't worth much?"

  Hurlish vaguely recalled the relevant meeting, one of the few she'd been too relevant to for her to sleep through. Sara'd scraped together all of Old Tulian's remaining light gems, hoping they were of value, only for her fledgling artificers to inform her that they were of such simple make they weren't even worth practicing on. Since then Hurlish had seen a good few go up in the Peasant's Theatre and other official pces, but the vast horde had gone...

  Hurlish gnced around the nightclub. Here, apparently. They'd gone here.

  "The silver?" Hurlish prompted, voice muffled as she took another long draught of mead she hadn't tasted since she was a child. As if in answer, Sara pointed over the crowd, to a man rexing at a circur table behind the stage.

  Hurlish squinted. "Who's that?"

  "Oh yeah. I forget, you weren't there for that." Sara downed a slug of her drink, coughing hard for a few seconds. "That's one of The Shaded Tree's leaders. The pricks that were in charge of the city before we showed up."

  "We're in a gang hideout?" Hurlish asked, hesitating as she went for a third pull of her drink.

  "We're in a gang business. I gave them the idea for the pce, and they keep it above-board." Hurlish gave that thin line of distinction a half second of thought, shrugged to herself, and took another long drink as Sara continued her expnation. "They were the ones that snagged up most of Old Tulian's valuables that were left behind. Fancy wine, polished silver, gemstones, you name it, they squirreled it away. I only convinced them to bust it out here because at least this way they're making money off of it, instead of leaving it to rot in some random lockbox."

  Hurlish finished her goblet and popped her lips with a smack before nodding approvingly. "Good choice." She waved for a refill. "But now I'm wondering why you think Evie'd give a shit."

  "You kidding me?" Sara ughed, waving an arm about. "Underground bar, one shitty way in, one shitty way out? Forget the gang association, Evie'd have conniptions over the fire hazard alone. I'll bring her eventually, but they've gotta at least fix up the stairs."

  "I'll vote for that renovation." Hurlish belched as the bartender took her goblet to fill, raising one eyebrow to himself as he did so. The silver drinkware was as rge as the man's head. She took another drink when it was returned to her, savoring this one a bit more. "Still, though. Damn. Can't believe they've got proper jungle mead."

  "I aim to impress, even in my legally-dubious drinking establishments. Is it so hard to believe they'd have something so close to local? Give me some of that, by the way."

  Hurlish handed Sara the goblet, which the champion had to hold with two hands. "Yeah, it's hard to imagine. I thought this shit was a local delicacy, from back home. Not something I'd find in the ass end of the capital."

  "The power of rich people and their alcoholism," Sara wisely intoned, before taking her own sip of the mead. Her face scrunched up. "Damn! Is there more alcohol or honey in here?"

  Hurlish chuckled, taking the drink back. "Sweetest way to get drunk the world ever saw, according to my pa. Always had a helluva time getting the honey without being stung, but it was worth it."

  They sat side-to-side for a while, swapping stories of the nastiest alcohol they'd been forced to sate themselves with over the years. When Hurlish was teetering from tipsy towards drunk, she leaned over. "So, what's the pn? You attack me like we're half a minute from fucking on the floor, then drag me over to get drunk, all while everyone else in sight is dancing their brains out. What's step three?"

  "I've never been in a nightclub without being horny, drunk, or both. Usually I hit the doors as all the above, with some extra shit stirred or snorted in. Gotta make sure you get the full experience, so we're still on step one, honey."

  Hurlish snorted ughter into her goblet. "Step two, then?"

  Sara smmed her own drink down, yet another of some godawful brew sporting a scent that left Hurlish's eyes watering. "Serg!" She called, snapping at the bartender. "Tell the band they're on break!"

  The bartender nodded as if this was normal fare, leaving Hurlish wondering how often Sara'd snuck off to oversee her little pet project. Before she could voice the question, however, she was being swept out of her seat to be herded towards the dance floor.

  The music above came to a cttering standstill, spawning a chorus of boos from the crowd. That only sted until Sara reached the press, red tinging her cheeks as she fshed Hurlish a dangerous grin. A different kind of music rattled into the air.

  However often it was that Sara visited this pce, it was often enough that boos became eted cheers the moment the tune changed, instruments never seen by this reality warbling to life. Pounding bass stirred the crowd into a new frenzy, the real thing intoxicatingly vibrant next to the drummers' pale imitation. Sara tugged her into the press, smiling madly all the while.

  The music kicked into a new gear just as the lights began to really spin, throwing all the world into a whirl. Up above, dancers with just enough clothes to frustrate had taken the musician's spots. Men and women danced with hands roaming across their own bodies, and along each other's bodies, a living lesson for the onlookers below on just how close they were expected to press in the club's semi-anonymity. Hurlish would have retreated in an instant from the chaos, if not for Sara's siren call dragging her forward, finding a space just clear enough to begin bouncing to the music.

  Hurlish hadn't the damndest clue what she was doing, and might've felt like a fool, if not for heady mead having long since drowned the concern. The lights, once disorienting, now swirled to the tune of her intoxication, like all the world was off-kilter save them and her. She'd tempted Sara into showing her this little slice of her old world, and she'd be damned if she was going to do anything less than dive headfirst.

  Hurlish joined Sara in the mix. The music pounded with her pulse as they pressed into one another, none of the coordination Hurlish had always associated with dance present, yet it had all the energy and more that she'd thought it cked. Sara pressed against her from behind in one moment, fingernails scraping up Hurlish's sides towards her breasts, then she was in front the next, shoving her ass into Hurlish's crotch while Hurlish kept her pinned in pce. The music kept pounding, an endless, repetitive pounding, smothering sense and reason like a river dousing a candle. She and the rest of the crowd were swept along by the raging energy of it, until she was doing little more than touching and feeling, moving and breathing, drinking in the heat of the crowd and Sara's heat most of all.

  Hurlish stopped caring about the bumps and jostles, stopped caring about how stupid she looked with her arms thrown in the air or her fists full of Sara's tits, or anything else at all, really. The music kept pounding, so Hurlish did too, doing what came to her. She would remember it in little fshes ter, snippets repyed in confused and no less pleasurable order. She had her hand around Sara's throat one moment, pressing the champion into her, then a woman had appeared, waving for Sara's attention with a concerned look. The reel of memory skipped forward, and then the pretty little blonde was sandwiched between them, Hurlish's thumb in her mouth, Sara's hand in her shirt, all three of them still moving to the music, this time with someone's legs wrapped around Hurlish's thigh. Time skipped forward a moment more and the blonde was gone, Sara was atop her shoulders, and the entire crowd was chanting something of the lyrics, some mindless garbage that was utter nonsense to Hurlish. She'd roared along anyway, just enough presence of mind left to catch Sara's shirt as she tried to fling it into the reaching crowd.

  Hurlish didn't know how many songs passed, much less how much time was spent, Irregur endurance leaving her and Sara on the floor even after others rotated out a half-dozen times. The blonde was back at one point, this time walking with shivering legs and a petite little brunette on her arms, and then Hurlish's mouth was filled with the taste of alcohol and an unfamiliar tongue, Sara's oh-so-familiar-hands wrapping around from behind to half support and half grope the ass of whoever-it-was savaging Hurlish's lips. Time jumped again as Sara took her hand, guiding her out of the press and toward the back, where circles of padded booths ringed the stage. Some woman wearing leather covering all the pces that didn't matter was spinning on the metal pole, but Hurlish only got the briefest glimpse of that show as she was shoved into the booth, Sara nding atop her with hunger in her eyes.

  Something hard that wasn't a leg or knee ground against her core for a time in that booth, something that had Sara's lips quivering when she pushed back against it. Hurlish found her mind focusing as she chased after those reactions, a bit of the haze pulling back as she tched on the idea of forcing her partner to need new pants before the night was done. The table suddenly rustled beside them, causing Sara to pull back, Hurlish chasing after her.

  "Having fun, Sara?" A woman asked, ying on her side with one hand supporting her head. She wore nothing at all, stretched across the tabletop in a position of practiced sensuality, her other hand resting on her hip. When Hurlish finally bothered to look at her face, she thought the sight looked familiar.

  "Priest chick?" Hurlish asked, interrupting whatever Sara had been saying. "The one from the temple?"

  "The very same!" The naked priestess replied, reaching out to give Hurlish a teacher's proud pat on the cheek. She was nearing forty, but even straightest of women would have admitted the years had treated her body kindly. "Gd you got to Amillya alright, despite my help. You having fun too, sweetie?"

  Hurlish shook her head, clearing the haze of willful drunkenness that clouded it. She really hadn't drank that much, but with how she'd been letting herself go, she'd really felt it.

  "Yeah," Hurlish simply. A hell of an understatement. "Y'got a nice pce here. How long you think you can keep it going?"

  "As long as the Governess lets us, I suppose," she replied, wiping a bead of sweat off her chest as she gnced at Sara.

  "Long as you don't let the Shaded Tree fuck it up..." Sara said, trailing off as her eyes tracked the trail of the priestess' across her own body.

  "Trust me, I won't. This pce is holy, as far as I'm concerned." The priestess giggled. "Well. Maybe that's more true for me than it is Amarat, speaking honestly All the same, there's not many pces with more emotions are put on dispy than First Light, is there?"

  Hurlish finally sat up properly, taking a proper look at her surroundings. The different booths circling the stage were separated by a good few feet, and, Hurlish realized with some surprise, some of the booths were closed off. Thick curtains had been drawn along rails in the ceiling, hiding the booth from the outside world. Hurlish gnced up, finding the same rails and curtains above their booth. She licked her lips.

  "So what were you saying, again?" Sara asked. "A silver for three, but only copper for a–"

  "Oh, please," the priestess replied, spping Sara's arm with a pyful swat. "I'm fairly certain charging Amarat's Champion for santhem would be some kind of sin, even if I can't remember which at the moment. It's on the house."

  Hurlish blinked, finally catching up to the pace of events, as well as noticing the small bags on the table. "Woah. What? You're selling us santhem?"

  "I believe the Champion was thinking about it," the priestess replied airily, gesturing toward a suddenly meek-looking Sara. "The name's Avie, by the way, sweetie. At least while I'm at work, that is. You'll have to come to the temple to learn my other one."

  Hurlish turned to Sara, whose flush was no longer wholly from alcohol. "I mean, I know it's not the best idea, but we're at the club, and I've spent so long cooped up in–"

  "The fuck, Sara?" Hurlish gestured at Avie. Well, at Avie's tits, anyway. "She just said it was free." Hurlish reached out and snagged a bag, fumbling with the drawstring. "How do you even do this, anyway? I've done some yayo before, which you snort, but I've heard people mention how santhem tastes, so..."

  Sara gnced at the ceiling for a moment as Hurlish continued to struggle with the bag. "Fucking thank you, Amarat." Then she snagged the bag from Hurlish, thumbing it open. There was a multicolored powder inside, which Sara began to reach for, then paused to look at Avie.

  "So... wait... how do we...?"

  The bag was snagged once more, a little puff of glitter coloring the air. Avie hopped to her feet with a spin, slid the curtain closed, then id back down. She was on her back now, hand holding the bag raised up above her, pinching the mouth shut as she ran a tongue slowly, oh so slowly, across her lips.

  "How? Why, you lick it up, of course."

  The bag fell open, endless glitter falling across Avie's tits.

  ---------------------------------

  Hurlish barreled through the curtain five minutes ter, Sara wrapped around her like an octopus, but Hurlish was pretty sure an octopus would've left fewer hickies, what with the way her mouth wouldn't leave her burning skin for longer than it took to hiccup. She was also pretty sure Avie was still quivering from her aftershocks on the table they'd abandoned, but that was probably okay because her eyes had rolled back down in her head, and really Hurlish didn't care, because there was no way in hell that flimsy little wood would survive five seconds of what she needed.

  Hurlish awkwardly sprinted towards the first door that even vaguely resembled an exit. Sara suddenly untched her lips as they passed a table, glittery lips slurring as she pointed a finger at the Shaded Tree representative sitting there.

  "You! Private room! Where?"

  "We have no private rooms, I'm afraid, as that's what the curtains are–"

  "Lie! Don't care! Fuckin..." Sara bent back down, refreshed herself on the taste of Hurlish's skin, then threw her head back up. "Soft! Need something long and soft. Where?"

  "I told you, we don't–"

  A woman's head rose from beneath the table, spittle dripping. "Just tell her, please."

  A man's head rose a moment ter. "Or we'll never be rid of her, you know that."

  "But–"

  "Tell her," both figures said in unison, more firmly, "Or we won't continue."

  The man gnced between both faces, then groaned in resignation. "Fine! Down the hall, into the door beled Pending Imports, behind the left boxes."

  "Good," both purred, descending.

  "But I don't want to see any– oh, fuck–"

  Whatever happened next Hurlish didn't know, because she was already through the door, Sara's teeth drawing lines progressively lower on her chest. She plowed around one corner, then the next, shoved aside some boxes, and was suddenly greeted with a room of red velvet, a bed rge enough for three at its center. Hurlish grabbed a fistful of Sara's hair to peel her off like an old bandage, then shoved her gracelessly through the air. Sara bounced off the bed, not even moving from her position as she began to shimmy her pants down.

  Hurlish threw her own belt off hard enough to dent the wall, her pants and shirt following in simir fashion. The entire bed creaked as she crawled up onto it, but in a good way, not in the already-about-to-fall-apart way. Hurlish snagged one of Sara's ankles, sliding her across the silk sheets.

  "Oh f-f-fuck, Hurlish," Sara stuttered, twisting as her hands repeatedly foiled her pns to remove her pants by the way that they kept moving to touch Hurlish.

  "I gotcha, I gotcha," Hurlish whispered encouragingly, gingerly grabbing hold of the nylon pants on either side of Sara's hips. After a moment of feeling her skin through the material, Hurlish bunched up her fists and yanked them outward, tearing the garment in two.

  "Fuck!" Sara yelped, pulsing cock exposed to the open air. "How am I supposed to walk home now, Hurlish?"

  "I'll carry you," Hurlish breathed, moving forward on the bed.

  "Oh, yeah, why didn't I think of that?"

  That comment, among others to follow, were the reason they ter reflected that perhaps an entire bag of santhem between the two of them had been a bit much.

  Sara's cock rose up into the air, thick and veiny beneath the ruby gemlight that suffused the room. Hurlish straddled Sara's legs as she looked at it, mouth watering. She took a hand and pressed it up against the skin of her lower abdomen, feeling its heat soak into her.

  Sara's eyes bulged at the sight. "That'd... that'd kill Evie." She looked up at Hurlish, the childish sincerity of her concern woefully out of pce. "Not you, though, right? You're big. Way bigger."

  "Not me," Hurlish breathed her agreement, getting her knees beneath her, "Not me, for sure. And I don't care. We'll find out."

  Between Hurlish's shaky legs and swimming vision, not to mention Sara's desperate squirming, it took some time to line things up. Hurlish whined pathetically each time she felt Sara's cock brush against her lower lips, a tremble running through her that threatened colpse, but she persevered. Inch by inch, second by second, she lined herself up, until the upward straining of Sara's hips finally found purchase, the tip of her sinking a little deeper than it had before.

  "Fuck!" Sara swore again, staring at Hurlish. "It's so big. It's so fucking big. Take... take your time, adjust to it. It's alright."

  "No," Hurlish said, smming her hips down.

  The world shattered as Sara slid into her, a heat like no other forcing the breath from her lungs in a wordless gasp. Every muscle of Sara's body went taut, as if electrified, while Hurlish found her strength vanishing, slumping into a messy pile that had her falling forward. She caught herself by the elbows just before she would have crushed Sara, tiny little thing that she was. Hurlish's back was arched so that their faces could be just inches apart, breath intermingling as words tried and failed to be formed between them. Hurlish watched Sara's eyes fall in and out of focus, warring for the presence of mind to say or do anything, and loved it. She clenched down, forcing a squeal from the champion's lips

  "Huuuurrrliiiissssh!"

  "I know, I know," Hurlish breathed back, peppering a series of sloppy kisses across Sara's face. Every movement, every twitch, even all the way up at her head, was enough to move her hips enough to prompt new shivers of pleasure. "So fucking big, Sara."

  "So fucking tight," Sara whined back.

  "Gods, I'm gonna fuck you forever."

  "Please. Please, please, Hurlish." Surrounded, pinned, and as far from sober as she was, Sara couldn't muster the strength to move Hurlish by a hair's breadth. "Hurlish, anything you want, anything. Please, please just fuck me."

  "Cum inside," Hurlish decred. "Cum inside every time. No matter what. That's what it'll cost me– I mean you– to fuck me. For me to fuck you, I mean. Shit."

  "Fine, finefinefine! I was gonna do it a-ny-wwwwaay!"

  Sara's words devolved into a high-pitched squeal as Hurlish rolled her hips forward, stirring Sara's cock within her. She could feel every inch of it as she moved, pressing into her walls like golden light. Hurlish felt her own girlish whimper crawl out of her throat completely unprompted, and she didn't do anything to arrest it. She let her head fall the final bit forward, trapping Sara's lips beneath her own as she began to move.

  Gods, it was... fuck. Fucking. Hurlish was fucking Sara, taking her for all she was worth. It was animalistic in its motion, just a woman shoving a cock as deep inside her as it could possibly go, but it was so much more. The sound of every slip on the sheets was a harpist's symphony, every wet noise a cherub's giggle, and Sara's moans, oh–! Oh, those were the choir, the prize that every animalistic rut of her cunt was rewarded with.

  She felt it rising already, within her, stirred on by that nigh-painful stretch that Sara's cock brought to bear. Hurlish slid up and down across Sara's body, timing it so that the champion's hips could sm into her at just the right moment to shove her cock deeper, just a little deeper, shoving more fuel into a fire that had been burning from the first day they met.

  "Cum inside, remember, cum inside," Hurlish whispered, some distant part of her mind still capable of speech. "Only inside, fill me up, I need it."

  "I want it, I want it, please give it to me, fuck me–"

  Hurlish sped up, words falling from her in stutters and stops. "Just– so deep. Fuck me full, fill me up. Knock me up, fucking, Sara, please just knock me up, leave me yours–"

  "Yes, I will, I promise–"

  Hurlish curved her back with a long groan as she pulled up and away, grinding the head of Sara's cock against the spot that set her on fire, then smmed back down, riding the whole shaft further into delirium. Sara was bucking helplessly beneath her, all rhthym lost as they both kept groaning, whining familiar phrases that they both called pointless but knew all too well they carried far more meaning than either wanted to admit.

  "Full of you, filled by you–"

  "Fucking make you mine, always mine–"

  "All yours, all yours, a fucking again and again, as many times as you want, as many kids as you want–"

  "I wanna cum in you, I wanna cum in you so bad Hurlish you don't understand–!"

  "I do I do, I do so much, so just... fucking! knock! me! up!"

  Hurlish smmed back down one st time, filling herself to the brim on Sara's cock. Lightning struck with a high-pitched scream as Sara convulsed under her, the head of her cock fring as her fingernails dug lines on Hurlish's thigh. Hurlish was so, so close, but she knew she'd only come when she felt it, felt that heat filling her even further–

  Hurlish's mouth opened in a silent O. Sara was cumming inside her, hot white liquid filling her up. She wrenched her eyes shut as the world shattered into that same, piercing white. Hurlish took fistfuls of the bedsheets and tried to shove herself further downward, tried to get Sara as close to her core as she could, tried to find some part of her too deep for even the potions to reach the following morning–

  And then she sagged, an earthquake worth of tremors following in the wake of her peak. Sara was still shifting on the sheets below her as Hurlish toppled downward, both legs betedly wrapping the woman's waist at the st instant so Hurlish could still fall, but now without letting Sara slip the slightest bit out of her, so that they ended up face-to-face on the sheets. Hurlish bit her tongue well past the point of pain as Sara continued to cum in her, every pump driving her a little bit higher in a different, new way from her orgasm. She felt a little bit of it begin to spill out onto the sheets and it enraged her in a way nothing ever had, so she took hold of Sara's ass and shoved her even harder against her, whining little nothings in the champion's ear all the while.

  Finally, sadly, a too-short-eternity ter, it came to a stop. Hurlish rexed against Sara, luxuriating in the heat of skin against skin. Some little leaked out of her once more, but she didn't have the energy to stop it any longer. She just y there with Sara's face nestled between her breasts and ran a hand through her hair, petting her gently, murmuring quietly.

  "Good girl, very good girl. You did so good for me. Good, good, good."

  Barely unconscious though she was, Sara nuzzled deeper into Hurlish's tits, taking comfort in the sound of her voice.

  ---------------------------

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  Hurlish woke te, te, into the night. Sara was stirring against her, moving so her face wasn't nestled between her breasts.

  "Mm?" Hurlish intoned curiously.

  Sara's face emerged from between her tits with a gasp. "Sorry!" She whispered. "Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you. Just... breath. I needed to catch my breath."

  Hurlish's chuckle was low and rumbling, reverberating into Sara's chest. "Guess I can't bme you for that, can I?"

  "You really can't, no."

  The gemlights must have turned themselves off at some point, because it was pitch bck in the room. Hurlish listened to Sara quietly breathe for a while, taking stock of herself. Santhem had a short time of effect, shorter than alcohol, and she could barely feel a buzz in the back of her skull at the moment. She was fairly certain she was sober, or at least as sober as one so thoroughly exhausted could be. After a few minutes of peaceful rexation, Sara shifted.

  "Hurlish?" She whispered, ever so quiet. "You awake?"

  "Yeah," she whispered back.

  "Do you wanna... talk?"

  "About the–"

  "About the kids thing, yeah."

  Hurlish sighed, long and deep, but it wasn't a sigh of reservation. Just a clearing of the lungs and mind, because her thoughts were long since settled.

  "Go ahead."

  Sara shifted, hugging herself just a bit tighter to Hurlish.

  "We've only known each other for four months, you know."

  "Four months and eight days since the goddess of love arranged our meeting, yes."

  "Gods, you keep count?" Though disbelieving, Sara sounded more amused than disturbed. "Alright, four months and eight days since we met."

  "Since the goddess of love and passion guided you to my doorstep, yes."

  "Okay, fine, I guess that's true enough."

  "It's very literally true. No exaggeration necessary. So when you're about to say..."

  "That it would be irresponsible to do this in such a short time, no matter how we feel..."

  "I'll say that divine providence usually trumps lesser things like the getting-to-know-you phase, and the are-we-serious phase."

  Sara giggled lightly. "I guess we have lived with each other for most of that time, huh."

  "In my vilge, it was expected that a married couple live together for three months before trying for their first kid. We're already ahead of schedule, you ask me."

  "Not married, though."

  "Because Evie would kill me if I got the ring first."

  "Yeah, she would." Sara sighed. "That's a whole separate thing. I'm not going to marry anyone that's technically my sve."

  "But if not for that, if I'd proposed, say, a month ago...?"

  "I'd probably have said yes, yeah." Sara groaned, as if frustrated with herself. "My dad would kill me. He wanted me to date someone for five years before I got married, live with them for two. 'Don't make my mistake, Sara', he'd always say. And that wasn't even with kids in the mix."

  Hurlish's heart beat a little faster. She wasn't sure if Sara could feel it against through her skin. She stayed silent, though, because Sara was the only one who needed to make up her mind here.

  "You know, you're at least right about Amarat. She did put us together for a reason, and I don't think your smithing skill was all of it."

  "But?"

  "But... I wish she'd be a bit clearer with stage two. Everyone says Amarat's the least subtle of the gods, but I haven't noticed that. Her guidance is always so vague and uncertain, not obvious like everyone says it should–"

  Sara choked off as muffled voices floated through the air. The room's hidden door had fortuitously swung shut at some point in the night, but it wasn't the most soundproof thing. Feet shuffled into the storeroom just a few yards distant, voices growing clearer.

  "...can't believe we're supposed to put them in here."

  "Why not? Boss tells us to do it, we do it. Simple."

  "Still, though." There was a sound of grunting, then of wood scraping on the floor. "A tavern's hardly the right pce for this."

  "Whatdya mean? Look at how fancy it is. Jewels, engraving, the works. Shit's valuable."

  "Still, though. Storing a crib in a tavern? A baby goes in that. That ain't right."

  "Who cares? Not like anyone's gonna be using it anytime soon, anyway."

  The voices said other things, but Hurlish didn't hear them. She was too busy smiling. Smiling hard enough it hurt, and enjoying the feel of Sara stifling her ughter between her breasts.