##Ulthwé Exposure Therapy Apparently iambic was the most colloquial of all the poetic measures. Fioryth hadn’t known this. Frankly, she didn’t know anything about poetry, but she listened politely as the man from Iyanden told her the history of trochaic tetrameter. She’d off-handedly admitted to him of writing on occasion, and once he’d gotten started the seer didn’t have the heart to tell him: she didn’t know the difference between prose and verse. Compassionately, the man’s soulmate interrupted his explanations and the couple said their pleasantries, leaving Fioryth alone at the conference center’s transparent wall. The woman must have more patience for poetry than Fioryth, if the size of her expectant belly was anything to go by. Not that the conversation was taxing; she could take at least ten more of those tonight. The pool of patience the seer drew from when interacting with others was directly correlated to the amount of time she had to spend with her twin sister. It was serendipitous, then, that on the day Fioryth and the rest of her frigate’s crew were asked to host a diplomatic dinner, her sister came up with a prior arrangement she got to slip away to. This desertion didn’t bother Fioryth in the slightest. The less she saw of her twin Thellenvia, the more stable she found herself to be. “Catching your breath, my apprentice?” Warlock Jaerithil placed a reassuring hand on Fioryth’s shoulder and stood next to her, gazing out of the massive crystal panes at the curves of Ulthwe’s Dome of True Sight. Not much was different from when they’d last left the craftworld. Buildings hurried from the craftworld’s base like limestone stalagmites chiseled into pleasing angles. A bonesinger choir massaged a skin of black wraithbone over the old superstructure of a tower. At the wayport sticking out of their spire, a rainbow assortment of transport ships were docked, their solar sails like pastel petals painted with texture over the flat black-and-white of Ulthwe. “There’s no need to. I don’t think I got a word in for several minutes,” Fioryth said. “Although I think the Shipmaster might need a break.” Jaerithil turned to smile at their frigate’s captain as she regaled the Saim-Hann delegation with another well-fabricated adventure between swigs of punch, kidnapping their attention. Several of the other mariners were listening in as well, flabbergasted at the ways they were being portrayed. She was lucky none of the dire avenger fighting crew attached to the voidship were present. Fioryth could imagine a drunk wild rider sponsoring an honor duel on the banquet’s floor. The warlock took on a clever face. “She gets along well with our kin from Saim-Hann because they’re both fond of embellishments.” “Warlock,” Fioryth hissed, “what if they overhear you?” “What if?” Her teacher gestured with his free hand towards the crystalline skybridge attached to the expansive room and grinned wider, “Ah, and here comes the other procession for us to manage obsequiously.” It was all very perverse, Fioryth thought, making the guests of honor the hosts. Yet, when craftworlds collaborated in times of war, such as during the military operation which would be taking place shortly upon the crone world of Fath, it was only respectful to send delegations to the other parties. Allegedly it was for the purpose of increasing inter-craftworld comradery. Ultimately, it was done because they’d always done it this way, and no one was interested in suggesting they stop. Absent from these dinners were any important figures such as farseers or autarchs. Their time was much too valuable to be wasted on such things. This was how you were left with token delegations made up of whoever from the allied craftworlds volunteered, being hosted by people with little-to-no diplomatic bones in their body. It was a recipe for either mediocrity or disaster, neither of which were important enough to be remembered after a few years. The group of women glode towards them down the skyway, chatting amongst themselves and occasionally sneaking glances at Fioryth and Jaerithil as they approached. The junior seer tugged at the black collar of her high-neck gown. The gaggle descending on them wore dresses the color of the sky as dawn came on: blue, but with a darkness to it that hadn’t been cast off yet. Their coiffures were varied, some sporting corkscrew curls of glossy blonde, amber or lavender, others, platinum or pink agate braids ornamented in ways which would make a drukhari jealous of their solipsism. And Fioryth thought she’d spent too long on her bun before the event… The tallest of the delegation, leading from the front, strode up to Fioryth and took the seer’s hands between her own. “Warlock Jaerithil, I presume?” “Oh,” Fioryth responded, dumbfounded. “Oh, no, I’m only his student.” She looked over at Jaerithil. The lady held onto her hands. “Is that so?” she asked, a slim eyebrow raising. “He’s dressed so ostentatiously… I assumed he was just a *male* compensating for something.” The insult didn’t seem to phase the older eldar. He nodded, responding, “Perhaps male compensation is only a problem on Iybraesil, miss…?” “Tun’ahain,” she answered, letting go of Fioryth and taking Jaerithil’s hands. “Occasional warrior. Recently returned from our own special mission, although I doubt ours was quite as exciting as yours.” “...and I reckon ours wasn’t nearly as interesting as you presume,” the warlock deflected, letting go of her hands. “My apprentice’s foresight helped scry a route through the webway, dropping us right next to the crone world. We were scouting its system’s defenses when our frigate was ambushed by a battlecruiser manned by servants of the Dark Gods. We might not be here to tell you this if not, by sheer fate, a corsair cruiser of the Steeleye Reavers slipped out from the webway. Their prow batteries lanced straight into the vessel’s primary ammunition stores, splitting the zealots’ ship in two.” “What luck!” Tun’ahain exclaimed. “What were the corsairs doing there?” Jaerithil shrugged. “We have no idea. They were already off to wherever they needed to be before we got a chance to thank them. Our voidship limped back to Ulthwe instead of giving chase.” “It’s a cruel galaxy-- one that doesn’t allow us to thank our saviors,” Tun’ahain replied, seeming to warm up to the warlock. “Oh well. If the operation goes successfully, we can name our children after them, if we ever find them.” She placed a hand on his shoulder and directed his gaze towards her squad of ‘occasional warriors’. After the story, the women were all acting rather coy and whispering amongst themselves. Tun’ahain continued, “This is my sorry excuse for a squad of guardians. We didn’t bring much besides our good company, but we did bring several bottles of especially strong veil-wine.” Behind the thick layer of ladies (Fioryth used the term lady generously) in bustle dresses, she noticed a handsome man carrying two cases of the vintage. He seemed supremely weary of the women’s company, giving them curt responses when one would turn to address him, and took the opportunity when wine was mentioned to skirt around the mass of females. “No doubt, the wine will be as welcome as you are,” Jaerithil commented. His apprentice recalled the warlock’s particular distaste of veil-wine. He was more of a Biel-Tanian vinejuice connoisseur. “My apprentice can show your porter where to place his load.” “Please, come this way.” Fioryth bowed slightly to the stranger and directed him toward one of the banquet tables. Her courtesy appeared to set the group of women aflutter, but soon enough the two eldar were out of range and dodging inebriated wild riders. “It’s rather gentlemanly of you to carry all the wine for your ladies,” noted Fioryth. “I’m used to it,” the man responded gruffly over the raucous laughter of a squad of visitors from Iyanden. Fioryth looked over at the stranger and tried to gauge his receptivity. He wore a smart blue tailcoat in the same color as his delegation, with a white dress shirt underneath which he likely owned before he put on his current pectoral musculature. His blonde haircut was, rather uncommon for an asuryani, high and tight instead of long and luxurious. He struck her as a male who rejected-- no, rebelled-- against femininity. There was an emptiness to the gray of his sclera, but it could have very well been boredom; she’d never been that great at reading men’s intentions. If Fioryth were good at doing so, then her sister wouldn’t have so easily snatched the last one she’d been with… So instead of trying, Fioryth kissed any insight into the male psyche she thought she possessed goodbye and spoke her mind. “I would be used to disappointment too,” she grinned, “if I had to live among Iybraesil’s women.” The man looked over at her and the gray of his eyes widened, then he broke out in laughter, head thrown back towards the glittering white chandeliers shaped into vertebrae. It felt relieving to talk shit. Now she understood why her twin sister did it so often. He was still chuckling when he asked, “What tipped you off to their charms?” “I have a friend from Iybraesil,” she gushed. “He’s probably shared enough about your women to fill a book.” The pair walked along the table filled with plates of Ulthwean delicacies. The smells alone were sufficient to make the mouth water. There were steaming platters of reduced t’ukmeil and roasted rylabil… although Fioryth preferred the mousse. She pointed to the table’s end. “You can set them down there, if you may.” “How do you know someone from Iybraesil?” he wondered, placing the cases and smoothing his coat. “Is he an outcast?” “We’ve never met in person.” Fioryth took his hand in hers to formally introduce herself. “I send him letters as a pen-pal. His name is…” As soon as she’d taken the man’s hand, Fioryth’s fingers tickled with electricity and her heart beat in tune with his aura. It was the same warmth she felt when she ran her palm over the runewords on her friend’s letters. One could gather on their fingertips the residual emotion dripped by the writer’s needlepoint, if they were especially hungry for connection. “Zelkodar?” The man stared back at her, astonished. “Fioryth?” “Zelkodar!” The seer sprung forward and hugged her friend tightly. He returned her embrace, although slightly less enthusiastically when he caught one of the Iybraesil girls gawking at him when the jumble of revelers in the hall shifted perfectly to allow for line-of-sight. She started pushing through the party towards them. “I wasn’t sure you were still alive after I sent my last letter. Your response never arrived!” He broke the hug, but kept his hands on her arms. He didn’t want to let go of his friend now that chance had tossed them together. “I didn’t send one yet. I was trying to think of how to respond without sounding angry.” After Zelkodar sent a novel-sized essay on the woes of Iybraesil’s men, Fioryth responded, playfully, with a single taunting sentence. Realizing how silly his frustration ultimately was, Zelkodar never felt quite as bitter afterwards. It was still a difficult letter to follow up on. “Then you can think up a good retort while we chat,” she said, plucking a bottle of veil-wine from the case. The seer was almost giddy with excitement. “No more waiting years for a response! We can share everything we’ve been up to between our last exchange.” Fioryth grabbed her friend’s hand and slithered between the presses of party-goers, holding him firmly. Realizing she was about to commit the same disregard for duty that her sister showed earlier, she caught sight of Jaerithil through the crowd. The warlock was managing the delegates from Iybraesil, chaperoning them towards the comestibles and smiling through gritted teeth at their jokes. Fioryth lobbed a telepathic message to him and sniped his response back without turning, straight through the crowd. *Flee while you can*. The pair were out the door and in a sky car before any more of the Iybraesil women could catch them. At the door to her living unit, Fioryth paused to make clear: “Any mess we may find inside is my sister’s, okay?” “You had a sister this entire time?” “Yes,” she replied defensively. “I never thought it was important to mention her.” Fioryth needed to deal with Thellenvia every day anyway, the last thing she wanted to do was commit any of her own leisure time to writing about her. The door slid open at a mental command and she ushered her guest in. The living unit was best described as ‘cramped’, according to Fioryth, but Thellenvia, needing to be contrarian, would call it ‘cozy’. As if sardines suffocating in their stasis-tins were considered cozy! Two meters in, an olive drab couch lay with its back against a divider, attended to by a wooden coffee table in front. On the wall across from it, to their right, was a liquid crystal screen for scrying news or other information. To the left, open to the rest of the room save for the short dividing wall the couch snuggled up to, was the kitchen. Dirty pans left by Thellenvia cluttered the counter and spiked Fioryth’s blood pressure. Further past the couch by another two meters was the rear wall, taken up primarily by a window. Pink light shined through, the end of the day-half of craftworld Ulthwe’s cycle. Ignoring all of those things, of course, Zelkodar looked to his immediate right when he entered and marveled at the disaster of a room through its open door. Dresses draped scattershot across the bed. “Have trouble picking out what to wear for tonight?” “No!” Fioryth brushed past him and slid the door shut with her mind. “That was my sister Thellenvia’s room. She didn’t have any good dresses for the party she was going to, so I let her borrow mine.” “How lucky she is to have such a generous sibling who shares her figure.” “We’re twins,” Fioryth begrudgingly let go. They were more than twins, to be honest. They shared emotions, sensations… Imagine sharing a room, sharing your parent’s expectations, sharing a face with someone you hated your entire adolescence… Only to discover when you grew into adults that your twin-bond fully matured and you needed to share even more; you couldn’t stop sharing what you’d always been able to hide. There was nothing lucky about it. They took their shoes off at the door (more of a Saim-Hann custom, but it spread to other craftworlds through osmosis) and Zelkodar sunk against the arm of the couch while Fioryth foraged through the kitchen’s wall-mounted cupboards for a clean set of wine glasses. The shelves popped out on their own at a nudge from her psyche, contents laid bare to peruse. “The door closest to the window is the bathroom, if you need to freshen up.” Unmentioned was the final unexplained door, between the washroom door and the crystal liquid display. Presumably, his friend didn’t sleep in the same bed as her sister. No further mysteries harried his understanding of the apartment. A glittering coupe glass was placed in his hand and Fioryth uncorked the veil-wine, pouring enough into both glasses that Zelkodar was worried she would spill twice-over. Strategically, one of the twins (perhaps both?) picked out a burgundy rug when they were decorating. “Was this sister of yours at the dinner we came from?” Zelkodar took a sip of his vintage so it wouldn’t pour over the side. “No, she avoided going to it,” said Fioryth, sitting and crossing her legs. “She’s going to some girl’s Black Day.” “Black Day!” exclaimed Zelkodar. “Is it like a funeral?” Fioryth realized how odd the celebration’s name must have sounded to anyone not from Ulthwe. “Oh, no. It’s like a coming-of-age ceremony, when an eldar receives their first set of mesh armor and officially joins the Black Guardians for their mandatory service.” She closed her eyes and looked quite smug with herself. “Although, ours might as well have been a funeral for my sister. It was the first time she had to accept responsibility since she was no longer a child. Life for her must’ve peaked in adolescence!” The junior seer took a long gulp of her glass. “So how did she get invited to this one?” “Her *lover* asked her to come,” Fioryth spit out the word *lover* like a slur. “He’s the artisan who forged the host’s mesh armor.” Zelkodar recalled information mentioned in passing long ago. “Oh. Your boyfriend was training to be an armorsmith as well. Did your sister meet her partner through him?” Fioryth’s mouth twisted into a frown, and some scarlet heated her cheeks. “No,” she huffed. “He *is* my boyfriend. Or he was.” The girl downed another quarter of her glass and filled it to the brim again. “I’m sorry, Fioryth.” “Don’t pity me, you asshole.” She despised her sister’s pity especially. She remembered feeling it when Thellenvia returned home one night with her ex. The bitch-twin was horny out of her goddamn mind, so it was only natural for Fioryth to try to quell the urges; her only mistake was doing so on the couch. One sister’s pity turned into another’s fury. This fury reflected, and next thing she could remember was being pried apart from her sister by the man who used to be her lover. She hurt all over, a hurt which was doubled by the pain she’d inflicted on her mirror. One of them got to sob into her pillow, the other got to sob into her man. Fioryth knew she needed to flee from this all or she would go insane, but the impulse was nullified by Thellenvia, who held on even harder because she knew she would go crazy if she ever let go. Fioryth put on a smile and clinked her glass against his. “Just lend me an ear, and I can tell you all about what my whore of a twin sister did…” Ignoring the sexual undertones of a woman asking him to lend his ears (one of the eldar’s erogenous zones), Zelkodar settled into the arm cushion and prepared to hear all the juicy details which were sure to follow. The recalculation of his long-time friend being single was filed, then tossed to the back of his mind. Excitement over his ability to talk freely with a friend far overshadowed the excitement of talking to a woman. Being from Iybraesil, where women outnumbered men, talking to single women really wasn’t exciting at all: it was a weekday. Once Fioryth got to the tear-stricken scene where what she thought was a soulmating proposal was actually a breakup, Zelkodar was on his second glass himself and he could agree: this story was almost as interesting as his own. All it needed was an evil twin wrapping her arms around the ex’s and walking away with him while the betrayed Fioryth cried under an amethyst pine. ----- Effervescence was the primary feeling on Thellenvia’s mind as they approached the entrance to the hall hosting the Black Day celebration. For some unknown reason her heart sped up and she could barely stay still on the ride over, so the girl clung to Gambhis’s arm as if she were an accessory. Unlike her twin sister, Thellenvia understood-- thanks to the twin-bond-- she was more *emotionally unstable* than other eldar, and when she got the chance to anchor herself to Gambhis, she gladly took it. The confluence of fates flowed in such a way so the frigate she and her sister were serving on happened to come into port right on time for Thellenvia to attend *the* Black Day celebration her boyfriend forged the mesh armor for. You couldn’t have a Black Day without the suit of armor, so really, she was being escorted by the most important person there! Minus the adolescent flowering into adulthood, of course. Gambhis double checked his suit and snuck another look at his partner in the evening light before they entered the open double doors. “You look gorgeous, Thellenvia.” Of course she did. She’d picked Fioryth’s best black pencil dress, low cut and form hugging, so her sister couldn’t wear it to her own event. She’d even braided her brunette ponytail, laying it tactically over her shoulder to draw his attention towards the region where it ended. “What made you say that again? I recall you whispering something similar in my ear when you picked me up.” Thellenvia fought off rising feelings of embarrassment. She could only presume the emotion was due to her dumb smile being genuine, rather than constructed as they typically were. “You looked distant,” he admitted, “but I’ve found when someone uses your name you perk right up.” “That’s because I’m so used to Fioryth telling on me,” said Thellenvia. “Now, let’s utterly forget my sister for the night and enjoy ourselves.” They took their first steps through the portal and into the party. The hall was impressive for a normal coming-of-age party. Wraithbone columns carved into spirals propped up an upper floor which looked out over the primary. Balustrades in the shape of thin hourglasses lined the overlook between the columns. When the final grains of sand in them touched the bottom, the gravity inside would invert and the contents would start to drop upward. Eldar filled the main floor, chatting, drinking and sneaking bites of hors d'oeuvres. Off to the left, on a raised stage, a band ran bows over their string instruments, producing an elegant quodlibet to fill empty space in conversation or to dance to. Thellenvia managed to herd Gambhis toward the cocktails and broke off from him for a moment to grab two Aktosha’s Kisses in glasses balanced on crystalline spheres instead of stems. A shrill cry rang out from behind. “Gambhis!” Thellenvia turned in time to see a young woman in a flowing white summer dress leap into her boyfriend’s arms and wrap her hands around his shoulders. “Erimele,” Gambhis replied with a measured friendliness, setting her on the polished marble floor. “Where is it,” she asked, bouncing up and down on her toes. “Where’s the armor?” “I left it in our vehicle,” explained the armorsmith. “I didn’t think you’d need it the second I arrived. Don’t you want to be a child for a little longer?” The girl covered her mouth and laughed lightly at his comment. “I suppose so. I’m so glad you’re here!” “Erimele, this is my *partner*, Thellenvia.” The twin handed Gambhis both the drinks and fought back a heavy urge to frown, jealousy flashing up like a surprise from her depths. Gambhis got his hands all over *this*, measuring every nook and cranny of her body so her suit fit just right. Then he spent months toiling away on her mesh armor… What did this underage klutz have that she didn’t? A blush filled in from her ears and Thellenvia realized how pathetic she must be. Where did her envy even come from? This was simply her boyfriend’s client. She took the girl’s hands in her own in greeting, albeit while heavily guarding her inner state. “Nice to meet you, Erimele. Excuse my embarrassment, it’s the first time Gambhis introduced me using *partner-who-completes-me*.” Which was true, and she was very flattered he’d done so. She looked forward to hearing it more throughout the evening. “That’s fine,” said Erimele, firing out her sentences without a chance to breathe. “I love your dress! I can’t wait to wear black.” All the children at a Black Day celebration wore white while the adults donned black. When the celebrant rising to adulthood received their armor, it was customary for them to leave and rejoin the party in the grownup’s color, to signify their ascent into maturity. The young woman looked toward the entrance and broke the greeting. “Oh, there’s my uncle! It was nice meeting you too, Thellenvia!” She waved and took off trotting towards the door, and Thellenvia wondered if the girl could muster enough patience to sit through the traditional moment of silence which took place after the adolescent accepted their armor and the celebratory aspic was cut. Gambhis handed her back one of the Kisses and the twin sipped a sample, feeling lightheaded almost immediately. “How much liquor is in this?” she asked. “Is it bad?” Gambhis placed a hand on her lower back. “Mine doesn’t taste too strong.” He swapped his drink with hers and took a cautious sip. “Yours doesn’t taste any different. Maybe we need to get some food in you?” The pair picked their way towards the food table, Gambhis getting called to by every other group of revelers and needing to introduce the girlfriend he was very proud of. ‘Did you know she’s a crewmember on the frigate which scouted the Fath system?’ Thellenvia wondered if she was going to leave tonight with an arm looped around Gambhis for more than emotional support. ----- “And that’s how I survived a night in mon’keigh trenches, beset upon by their woman soldiers. Not the most illustrious of stories…” Zelkodar finished and exhaled deeply. He swirled the wine at the bottom of his cup. It was the first time he’d ever told a woman about the trials he’d faced in the dank, soggy pillbox; the things he’d been forced to do to live. He was nervous about what Fioryth would think of him after knowing how he’d been despoiled. Yet he trusted her. She was the *other* on the delivery address of his envelopes, always willing to read his musings. He must have been mad, willing to confide in a girl he’d met in-person for the first time over any woman from his craftworld… He picked up the wine bottle for another go, but it was drained. “But you’re still in control,” said Fioryth, answering the doubts he didn’t dare mention for fear of emasculating himself in front of a woman. She was watching him, elbow on the back of the couch. At some point in the conversation, they’d scooted closer to one another, Fioryth’s knees resting on the cushion. “I’ve read all of your letters, and there were never any tears in the words you sent. You never broke down due to your problems. You’re still in control.” He supposed he was. After the situation was over, it wasn’t like there was much he could do to change it. He leaned into the couch and stared back at her as she finished. “I think it’s very admirable.” “Thank you, Fioryth.” It was refreshing to hear a compliment. Ever since he’d returned from the trenches, his standoffishness when it came to women had earned him plenty of less than savory monikers from his fellow guardians. Before, he’d only been a cold bitch who occasionally put out, but after he pushed Letheril off when she forced herself on him, he was the prick who had to be put in his place. Damnable Khaine, he didn’t really want to be touched by any of them! It wasn’t his fault he needed some space. He sighed. “I wish there was something more I could do to help with your twin issue.” “You already helped. It was enough to tell someone how I feel. I’d gotten so used to bottling my emotions up, ever since my sister…” Her face twisted into a sorry smile and her eyes went misty. The only smile she hadn’t faked tonight was when she first realized who he was. She covered her eyes with a hand. “Isha, I feel like I’m going crazy. I know I’m not in control. I just don’t want to be defined by *her*.” “To me, she never defined you.” He couldn’t believe he’d blurted out something so cliche, but it was the truth. Up until she’d mentioned her sister, Zelkodar would have assumed Fioryth was an only child. She could appear a little selfish and bossy in their exchanges, but weren’t most eldar at the end of the day? An outwelling of emotion threatened to spill from between her eyelids. She leaned towards him and placed a hand on his left arm. “Then let’s both forget she exists tonight.” Zelkodar’s chest tightened. “Can you help me with that, too?” He should have recoiled at her touch. The past twelve women who were over-eager to approach him received that treatment. Yet, he knew her intentions. He saw she was as frightened of life as he was, if not more so. Compared to her, he *was* in control. She leaned ever closer to his face and closed her eyes, kissing his lips softly, touching his left thigh and arm. A light tingle rose across his body. Fioryth’s initiative wasn’t violation; it was sincerity. She pulled away with delicate sluggishness, hands shaking slightly. Zelkodar slid his arm around her waist and pulled her back, leaning in himself this time around and returning her kiss. Fioryth melted against him, the burden of doubt exiting her body. She wanted to stay like this longer, but she also wanted to prove to herself she wasn’t vulnerable. She didn’t want to be treated carefully. Her hand grabbed the arm around her waist and lifted it up, the psycho-reactive seam at her neck unraveling and letting her dress crumple forward. Zelkodar brought his hand further up, rubbing his fingers lightly over her nape. Out of her lips a moan escaped, skin burning. The seer pressed her lips tighter against his and snuck her tongue in between, relishing the writhing of his muscle against hers. Strong fingers brushed down her spine carefully, quickening her undressing. The anxiety drained out her feet onto the red carpet and his fingers continued sinking, sliding over her right cheek, squeezing hard like he was juicing a citrine fruit. A gasp separated their lips. Surprise. Why surprise? She wanted this. Fioryth’s hand fit over his to make sure it stayed there. She gave him one more wet peck before pulling back to rest her head on his shoulder and slide her dress off her legs, flicking it across the room with a kick. Ah, she felt so exposed! To make up for the disparity in clothing, she wrestled his filigreed trouser buttons with one hand while the other stroked his bulge through the silky material. She wasn’t making any progress after a few seconds. Zelkodar whispered into her ear. “Let me help.” She acquiesced and moved her hand up to his dress shirt, flicking each of the buttons off one-by-one with a telekinetic wag of her finger. Once his stomach was exposed, Fioryth couldn’t help running her fingers over the firm muscles. “It’s all yours,” he murmured, his deep voice almost a growl despite being dulcet. She removed her cheek from his shoulder and started at his neck, kisses descending his pale chest towards his abdomen. *Her* abdomen, not to be stolen by anyone else… Damn it! She promised herself she would forget about Thellenvia no more than a couple of minutes ago. Right in time for his iliac furrows to point her toward her prize, Zelkodar undid the last button and dragged his pants down his legs with his free hand, cock throbbing free. It stared her right in the face, the blood surging in it. “A-aah…” What a pitiable moan she produced… it was just a cock, for Isha’s sake. Yet it’d been so painfully long since she’d seen one, gotten one… *owned* one. Her lips parted and her tongue slid out like she was about to pant. Zelkodar’s left hand kneaded her rear. She closed her eyes and tried to remember what she’d heard from Thellenvia. When the twins were months deep into a mission on board the frigate, Fioryth’s sister would fantasize at night in her bunk about what she would do when she got home. Her sister’s brain was so weak, so devoid of any content save for her singular focus, even the words she thought as she drilled with her psychoplastic dildo were broadcast directly into Fioryth’s mind: *Drag your tongue around the tip...* Zelkodar’s dick was so hard, when it swelled the head flushed and strained against the skin. She lowered her lips in a cage around it and swirled her tongue along the end. Her slimy muscle pressed it against her lips, rotating it around, occasionally losing her control over the cock as it performed its own bucking dance inside her mouth. Zelkodar sighed and leaned his head back, brushing a few loose strands of her hair behind her ear. *...then suck it.* Fioryth heard the words in Thellenvia’s voice, which was really her voice too, and she felt she could understand her sister’s longing a little better now. Was this the technique she used to steal Gambhis away? Was this one of the few things Thellenvia thought she knew better than her? Because the apprentice seer would master this. She would become better than Thellenvia so her twin could never take anything of hers ever again. Her lips closed around his cockhead and she started to suck downward. Zelkodar groaned, his hips rising as she brought her mouth up his shaft, tongue twisting around it. “W-where did you learn to do it like this?” She rose to the tip and popped it out, slapping her tongue against it a couple of times and tilting her head to look up at him. “Learn?” Fioryth asked absentmindedly, moving a hand under his thigh to massage his sack. He took in a sharp breath and his pupils widened as the guardian contemplated what he’d fallen into bed with. She returned to her untrained lovecraft. Spit covered lips pursed effortlessly up and down his length, her tongue embracing his girth and adding another layer of sensation to the already deeply aroused package. She was dipping far enough to take it in her throat, the amateur swallowing it greedily. Zelkodar’s hips shook-- by Isha, the sloppy noises her esophagus was making were beyond erotic! Fioryth’s ears burned red. Why by all the gods did she feel so self-conscious at that moment? Was this embarrassing on a first date? Her lipstick smeared across his mast, leaving a line of demarcation an inch from his sack where she couldn’t fit him any deeper. She was certain this must have been the sloppiest excuse for this technique known to eldar, but there would be other chances for improvement, right? Unlike her sister, Fioryth always strove to do anything she’d done before even better. His shaft grew thicker in her mouth and her tongue slipped out from between her lips as she pulled back up. “Stop, or I’m gonna cum,” he groaned. Fioryth felt his thigh flexing against her arm and she imagined his toes were curled, heels raising off the rug each time she dropped. He stopped gripping her ass so hard and tapped against it with his hand. Out of breath, she rose to the head and released him, rasping hard with her mouth open, spit stuck to the walls of her throat. All of the muscles in his body were coiled up and straining to burst. Fioryth watched a trickle of precum leak from the hole and over his frenulum. She glanced at him in anticipation, watched him biting his lower lip, and when his eyes met hers it was too much for the male. His eyes shut and he tossed his head back, letting out a frustrated moan, the initial shot painting the right side of her lips and ending halfway up her cheek. She bobbed back over the crown and slid it into her throat, muscles squeezing him as she gulped each pump so it wouldn’t agglutinate. Zelkodar’s fingers dug back into her ass, his other hand digging into the armrest. Limbs shivering, he returned to biting his lips to stifle any more deep moans. To be frank, his vision went white and he wasn’t sure if he was going to faint or not. Before she, herself, passed out from lack of air, Fioryth’s mouth climbed his shaft until it bucked free and she coughed lightly to clear her throat. Her partner peeled his fingers away from their cheeky death grip and laid them over her dimples of Isha as the last couple of ropes sprayed in lines across his eight-pack. His chest fell heavily and he wasn’t even the one sticking a dick near their windpipe. Fioryth licked the dregs up and giggled as her tonguetip tickled his abs, raising curses. “Was I”--she coughed a few more times, throat hoarse--”better than those human sluts you had?” Zelkodar wrapped both hands around her waist and shifted her up to meet his face, sucking on her lips. She was easily better than the mon’keigh dogs. She bet she was better than Iybraesil’s women too-- his mouth was telling her presently. Once he was quite satisfied with her taste, she stood up off the couch with a twinkle in her eye, taking hold of his hand and guiding him through her unit much the same way she’d moved through the crowds earlier. He shed the last of his clothes as they walked. Fioryth wanted so badly to push him up against a wall and have him take her right then and there, but the bed… she needed it on the bed. Past the bedroom door, Zelkodar voiced his apprehension. “Isn’t this your sister’s room?” Fioryth gazed back at him impishly and cupped her fingers over his spear. The door whispered shut and sealed them in. “Hmmm? What sister?” ----- Her emotions were swinging like a pendulum. No sooner had Thellenvia felt an intense melancholy sink into her belly than it caught fire, fluttering her stomach, warming her up from her center. Her lips felt hot, clumsy. She stood (subjective interpretation, a neutral bystander might have said *leaned*) attached to Gambhis, listening to him finish up their most recent conversation with a couple whose names she couldn’t recall, just like the previous six groups. “It was nice meeting you, Gambhis, Thellenvia,” the woman of the pair said, nodding to each in turn. The twin was fairly certain she was a flower breeder for a very peculiar type of bulbiferous geophyte. Thellenvia returned the farewell. “Id was vewwy--” Her tongue felt so heavy! She covered her mouth in embarrassment and restarted her greeting. “Id was vew-” Her eyes widened, mortified, and she leaned against Gambhis’s side harder. He squeezed her waist reassuringly. “It was very nice to meet you too. Please excuse her, she discovered the chocolate mousses were alcoholic only *after* eating three of them.” It wasn’t her fault she got a sudden craving for them. The couple bid their farewell, and Gambhis unintentionally hit up a conversation with a man sporting an impressive top-knot. Thellenvia gazed around the throngs of party goers, mostly black with specks of white here and there, and a prickling trickled on her spine, loosening her muscles as it went. First she was drunk, now she felt like she was back at an end-of-year sensation party from late adolescence, taking a press-tab of an unknown substance from a boy she barely knew who said he knew some corsair friends. Her twin sister had been concomitantly taking something far less fun. An exam, if she could recall… Gambhis’s hand groped her ass and she gasped in shock, tensing up. She wanted him too, right then, but he could at least wait until they got home from the party! Thellenvia turned to chastise him, but her boyfriend’s back was turned away, talking to his new friend. She whipped around to her other side and saw no one else close enough to have touched her. *What in the webway?* A chill settled over her skin and she felt exposed standing in the middle of this mass of eldar. Naked. Her nipples hardened against the silk of her sister’s dress. “Here she is! This is my partner, Thellenvia.” Gambhis turned to her and slid his arm around her waist again, introducing her to the silver-haired man he’d been talking to. Her mouth croaked out a sound all on its own. “A-aah…” Her ears flushed and she felt so stupid, so painfully stupid and horny. The stranger raised a sharp eyebrow, but didn’t say anything in return. Gambhis finally caught some concern and turned himself more sharply toward her, his free hand resting against her stomach. So close to her core… *Drag your tongue around the tip…* She heard her voice in her head. Or was it her sister’s voice? Oh no. Was this the cosmic karma Saim-Hann seers speak of? “Are you okay,” hushed the armorsmith, “my love?” Thellenvia pressed into him and kissed her boyfriend deeply, her tongue sliding rudely into his mouth and darting around his own. He took her embrace in stride, introducing his tongue to her side, wrapping against hers passionately. At least she knew why she was hopelessly horny now. Her sister. She knew Thellenvia was excited about this event, and now she’d purposefully picked up some loose man at the party she was at to spoil hers! Some man whose standards were so low he’d fuck a woman with an ego as fragile as Fioryth’s. He’d probably have a better time fucking a mon’keigh than putting up with that commanding cunt in bed. *...then suck it.* The twin pulled back and took his tongue with her, causing her partner’s fair share of shock now, forearm muscles tensing where she held him. Letting go of his appendage with her lips, she got him to share her blush from the public display. The man who she was supposed to be introducing herself to cleared his throat. Gambhis cleared his own in turn, and started back where he left off as if the previous minute hadn’t happened. “Ronahn, this is my love, Thellenvia.” The tall eldar grinned understandingly (if she was reading him correctly, something she thought herself very skilled at). His silver eyes were piercing, but not in a discomfiting way. “Thellenvia?” Ronahn repeated as if he’d already memorized it for later. He reached his hands out for her to take in a greeting. “A pleasure.” Thellenvia held his hands between her own and opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. She tried again, but not even the pitiful gasp she’d made earlier croaked through. Her throat tightened and her chest burned. “Has a gyrinx stolen your tongue?” he teased. No, it was more like ‘a dick is fucking my mouth’, but she couldn’t really explain at the moment, only mutely savor the taste. A phantom cock plunged desperately in-and-out of her throat. Tingling twinges of lust tickled her lips. She beat down panic as best she could. *It’s just a ghost dick*, she assured herself, *you can’t choke on it*. Thellenvia settled with an *mhmm* to answer his joke, breaking the greeting. Her eyes met pleadingly with Gambhis’s and the artisan finally understood what was going on. The man wasn’t stupid when it came to the twin’s bond. In fact, he’d gotten it explained to him twice, the first time by his then-girlfriend, Fioryth, and again by Thellenvia, his then-... well, he still wasn’t sure what to call his old relationship with Thellenvia. He’d like to say then-seductress, but saying such a thing would ignore his own weakness, his own cowardice and willingness to be seduced by his girlfriend’s twin. He was mature enough now to see he was the one ultimately at fault. Sure, the relationship started with Thellenvia tricking him into believing she was Fioryth for a night. Then there was the blackmail… but eventually he was coming to her willingly for the love she offered. He didn’t have the strength to tell Fioryth he fucked up, and so he hurt the woman, deeply. He’d thought he was over it all after the twins left to serve onboard a frigate, but it appeared he never fully unraveled himself from Thellenvia’s web. He got the closest to an apology he’d ever get from Thellenvia, and he’d tried to apologize to Fioryth once, but he realized as long as he was dating her sister she would never forgive him for his infidelity. It hurt his soul to hurt her, but he couldn’t live the rest of his life worrying about what Fioryth wanted. He’d spent several years worrying, and those were enough to drive him insane. He supposed he was simply selfish. Yet, he knew when he loved Thellenvia, it was because she was Thellenvia, not her sister’s twin. Although, when their psychic bond manifested strongly at times such as this one, it was difficult to separate the sister’s fates. In fact, if he thought about it, when he was fucking Thellenvia he was really stirring up Fioryth’s pussy too. It kind of made him… alright-- now was not the time for thoughts like that! “Ronahn, could you keep Thellenvia company for a minute? I’m going to grab the honored adolescent’s mesh armor.” ----- [Theoretically, this would be the start of a second chapter if I split this into chapters] To be broken was Fioryth’s desideratum. She was done with the illusion of choice she chased throughout her adulthood. She needed to be bent over and told to accept whatever was given to her and to *love* it, to say ‘thank you’ while life fucked her. Only then could she accept she lost. Pride made it so she had to go down flailing even when she knew it would make the fall worse. She climbed onto her knees on her sister’s bed, tossing her wrinkled dresses to the side and stealing Thellenvia’s pillow to rest her head against. Parting her legs and spreading her flower, a slim middle finger teased her clit. “Treat me… like you’re getting revenge on one of your mon’keigh bitches!” Zelkodar paused at the edge of the bed. She was good at needling at your more sensitive points, wasn’t she? Her importunity in mentioning the exact things which aggravated you was probably a factor in her strained relationship with Thellenvia. Or, Khaine damn her, perhaps she thought she was cleansing him in some way with her pussy, cleaning the corruption of mankind off his dick, taking him into her house and nursing him like he was a stray animal. He smacked her right bun viciously and her legs shut, the twin gasping and hugging the pillow with her free arm. “You want to be treated like a worthless Imperium dog?!” he yelled, getting into the act. Iybraesil’s men were not typically supposed to be dominant. “What’s your safeword, you little slut?” “*Thellenvia!*” He balked momentarily. “*Thellenvia?*” “It’s the last thing I’d ever yell out!” Her pink insides glistened, the scarlet handprint on her cheek apparating like a harlequin’s illusion. So she wanted to play coy with him? She would take his frustration, the share he saved for those human soldiers who deprived him of his superiority and the share he held for the women of Iybraesil that looked down on him. He slapped her right cheek again, drawing a cry and a wiggle of her rear. After lowering his knees onto the bed, he spread her legs and urged himself to the base with a single stroke. His singing spear dilated the underused entrance, broad crown waking up the sensitive nerve-endings on the walls of the eldar’s pink canal. She tried to squirm forward off his spire, but his hands closed around her shoulders. “Don’t you dare run away, pup. I’m going to breed you like the bitch of the Corpse-God you are…” Oh, sister. She was sorry, but tonight it was Fioryth’s turn to be destroyed and her twin would simply have to bear with it. Zelkodar started to hammer away at her sex, grinding at her walls and chipping away her resolve with every shove. Pressing her face into the pillow, she bit into it and stifled the first of her whimpers. Her hair bun was undone messily with a single hand and he tugged at the resultant ponytail, yanking her face up. “No hiding your moans! I’ll have you barking for me later, so you better get some practice in while you can.” Stomach fluttering, she gibbered out a cry. Her cheeks felt crimson and she knew her sister was embarrassed because there was no way one woman could feel this much sweltering shame all by herself. Somnolent corners of her femininity were waking, realizing their purpose, psy-nerve interfaces connecting with the male’s side through her fluids and adapting to his touch. She couldn’t really tell where he was anymore, all she could feel was a weight pushing from the inside out, the eldar’s psychic reality shaping her body physiologically to suit its current want. Muscles clenched to extract pleasure from her mate like they were feeding on the emotion. “Do you remember when I said my body was yours?” he growled in his mellifluous baritone. Three more slaps of his hips against hers filled her up as an ellipsis. “Revoked. From this point forward, this pussy is *mine*.” Her companion let go of her hair and Fioryth clutched the pillow. Tingles crept all over her limbs and she struggled to breath at the end of each thrust. Right before it felt like a heat wave was going to wash out from her core, Zelkodar popped free and her hips followed him, bouncing his rigid staff against his abs. He clucked disapprovingly with his tongue and spanked her right flank for the third time, to her chagrin. “Did I say you could come yet?” he warned, his middle and ring fingers prodding into her slickened petals and curling towards her E-spot. Did he think she was able to remember anything from the past thirty seconds? It’d already felt to her as if she’d been born into this existence taking his dick and she’d die impaled on it as well. His fingers pressed down on her spot with no small amount of skill, tapping it over and over, building up a pressure which made her insides squeeze again. A sorry whine eked forth from her lips and her legs shuddered. She must hold it in! She hadn’t been given permission yet. Fioryth squashed the pillow against her chest and held out for as long as possible. Existence didn’t exist anymore. She was floating on nothing, impossibly compressed, tightness getting worse each time he rubbed away at the soft-tissue near her clit’s base. Suddenly she couldn’t take it, everything was spilling out-- pushed out by his fingers. No! Keep it in, Fioryth! Bottle it up! Her whimpers piddled out into the pillow but her body exploded, her whole soul vibrating and releasing at once. Zelkodar’s fingers kept up their work until her world was a white ball of leaky heat, and she saw herself from above, collapsed forward onto the pillow, flushing red and streaked with sweat, shivering. ----- He didn’t really care that Thellenvia couldn’t answer; he asked the questions anyway. In this sense, Ronahn was very much like herself. She tried to keep focused on the present as her tongue rubbed against a shaft which wasn’t there. “So, you were on the ship that scouted the crone world?” “Mhmm.” “It must make you feel patriotic, volunteering to do your part.” There was no volunteering involved. Fioryth forced Thellenvia to go with her. Despite her execrations, her twin sister worried the strength of her Seeing would lessen if there was too much distance between them. Thellenvia didn’t know if this was based on facts or feelings, which, when it came to eldar, could be misconstrued as the same thing. “Mm.” “Well, hopefully Ulthwe will get the lion’s share of the waystones thanks to you, and a new generation can spring forth,” her companion noted dryly. There was always a baby boom after any sort of operation where fresh waystones were collected, offsetting an overwise persistent but quiet anti-natalism. The most plentiful source of the stones (and proving, again, that the universe hated the Asuryani) was also one of the most dangerous: the dead worlds in the Eye of Terror where the eldar’s old empire once reigned. Every spirit stone collected was a soul saved from eternal damnation, so it only made sense to hold back on the child-rearing until the craftworld was well supplied. Ronahn followed: “Do you already have kids?” What kind of question was that? “Nnnnh.” “...because Gambhis is a steal.” He sipped his spirit and left her to hang on his comment. “You’d best lock him down before some other girl comes along.” “Mrrrmm!” This bastard. Thellenvia had Gambhis locked down plenty, with or without children! Absent a warning, her throat cleared and Thellenvia erupted into a phlegmy cough. Ronahn snatched a tall, thin flute of water off a passing server’s plate, carefully handing it to her. The twin guzzled the cold fluid, washing down the slimy children her sister was swallowing with it. If she threw up now, Thellenvia wondered, would there be a layer of oily ectoplasm on top of chocolate mousse? No, the nut didn’t have any presence in the real world, only a lingering taste. And the taste wasn’t very good when your boyfriend wasn’t there too, staring at you like you were a goddess. She held her stomach with a hand and searched for the nearest table to pawn her glass off on. “Thank you for the water, Ronahn.” “The hero speaks!” exclaimed the willowy man. “I’m not a hero,” Thellenvia countered. He was toying with her, Cegorach knew-- and she was falling for it every time. “Just a holofield operator on the bridge. And I wouldn’t have been on that ship if my sister hadn’t dragged me with her.” “...*and* the hero has a sister!” Ronahn raised his glass into the air in triumph, then took another lazy sip. “I guess not every adventure happens because we want them to. What does she do?” “She’s a junior seer. Her name is--” Something slapped her rear and she shot straight out of the hunched over posture she’d been dipping into thinking about her twin. “Fioryth,” she gulped. “Fioryth?” he mulled over her sister’s name for a moment. “I’d have chosen something more alliterative, like, ‘Tiresia’.” “It’s not the first name I’d have picked,” she agreed. Thellenvia picked at her pencil dress to make sure it wasn’t hiking up. Another spank landed right where it’d smacked before and she sucked in a breath. Mercy, my sister’s unknown assailant! She was reminded of her adolescence, when their father would toss both of them over his leg and discipline the twins as a pair. It was always Thellenvia who caused the trouble, but after she started lying about which one of the twins she was to escape from the penance, Fioryth was obliged to share in the corporal punishment. No wonder her sister despised her… “Are you alright?” A penis split her lower lips apart and hilted itself inside her. “No--!” The twin was forced forward on her tip-toes by her body’s natural flight response, but the wraith-dick didn’t go anywhere, buried in her sister as it was. She almost fell onto Ronahn, when a pair of invisible hands shoved downward on her shoulders and locked her heels to the ground. The platinum haired eldar still grabbed her arms to steady her. “I can tell,” he said, his cool exterior lowering for a moment to express concern. “I’d rather not have you faint on my watch, so let’s start walking you in the direction of your partner. Can you do that?” “Of course.” Thellenvia nodded her head in tune with the tip nodding back and forth in her orifice. She would be stronger than her sister. He offered an arm and started to guide her on a circuitous route towards the giant double doors outside, skirting the crowd in the center of the hall. It was quite difficult staying upright in heels while all of your muscles from your waist down insisted they clench and tense up on their own schedule, but they made it to the final column on the edge of the great hall before the doors. The crowd was noticeably thinner here, men and women standing in twos or threes and having more private conversations than could be shared in the center of the room. Thellenvia rested against the wraithbone support, sweat dripping over her nape from the mental fortitude required to withstand the destruction being wrought on her quim and stay upright. The twin-bond was especially sensitive tonight. Then again, it was Thellenvia having all the sex since the effects of their soul-bond had manifested, so maybe she hadn’t realized what she put her sister through every time Gambhis made love to her. Gambhis… she needed him right now! Her sheathe spasmed. “Does this happen often?” Ronahn asked, placing a handkerchief between her shivering fingers. Thellenvia dabbed at her forehead and breathed a sigh of relief as the poltergeist pole receded from her essence. “It’s nothing,” she grunted. “I’m just a little”-- she wanted to say ‘drunk’, but the hand struck her peach on the same side for the third time and she cried out from the sting--”unbalanced!” Phantom fingers slipped into her slit and angled up towards her clitoris’s base, pressing relentlessly forth to give her twin sister what she wanted. It was going to give Thellenvia one too. The doors to the outside, only twenty meters away, seemed more like kilometers. She wouldn’t make it outside without making a scene. “Ronahn. Do not allow anyone past this pillar.” Her legs wobbled and she stumbled like a crippled mon’keigh around the wraithbone column to the other side. There was a fire scorching her ears and her mind was hazy, hot, a mirage of senses which slowed the brain to a crawl. Nonexistent fingers rubbed against her soft tissue, tingling growing, trickling terrible force. Her legs gave out and she lowered with resistance, back against the pillar, struggling desperately to stay standing but only stopping once she dropped into a squat. She couldn’t. She couldn’t cum. She couldn’t orgasm in public like this. Her head pressed against the veiny white column and she breathed deeply, nipples itching against her sister’s dress, hand holding her groin. A wiggle snapped to life behind her clit when the fingers hit home and it radiated outwards inside her body. No… no, no! Isha, *please!* Thellenvia’s legs shook violently. She couldn’t really feel them any longer. She pulled her pencil dress up to her hips and panted as the heat pushed outward from within. Oh gods, oh gods, WHY HER?! An eruption of squirt shot out across the polished floor and Thellenvia bit her hand to stop a yelp. The fingers kept massaging her E-spot and she squirted again; punctuation to how little she controlled her own body. As if it’d proven its point, the eidolon left her crevice. She needed to get up and leave immediately, but her muscles shook uselessly as the wave crept through her without alacrity. All she could do was stare wide-eyed at the puddle and try to pull her dress back over her sweaty thighs. She glanced down the row and saw a child staring wide-eyed back at her. It flitted behind the pillar it was standing at and her body miraculously gained the strength necessary to shuffle back to Ronahn. “Your boyfriend came in with the mesh armor while you were hiding.” His silver eyes sparkled and he covered up a guffaw when he saw her. “You’re as red as a Khainite beet!” “Take me as far away from here as possible.” “Purely platonically, of course?” “YES!” ----- A mumble not meant for Fioryth’s ears susurrated in the bedroom. “Towel…” The first, and most important thing, was to slow her breathing. Her lungs burned. It felt as though she’d taken a great journey away from here, into the stars, and she was finally returning after a thousand years to reoccupy her shattered body. Fioryth raised herself up on trembling elbows and poked her head down, gazing at the spot on the bed between her thighs. There was a sopping stain on the sheets. The woman let out a cry of alarm. She’d wet herself! The shame was almost too much to bear. “Wait!” Zelkodar cautioned, rushing back to the bed from his search for a towel and wrapping his arms around her chest. He held her firmly until her breaths slowed, sliding his large hand past her stomach and gingerly stimulating her. “You are inexperienced, aren’t you? I could believe you’d never used your mouth before, but sex…?” “I’d done it once or twice, but I was always the one on top. I couldn’t trust he knew what he was doing.” “I can’t trust you know either,” Zelkodar answered. “It isn’t pee, if that’s what you were shocked by.” Particularly unabashed courtesans were fond of calling it ‘Isha’s *other* Tears’. There were sponge-like walls inside the female eldar’s urethral tract which released the liquid, although the question of ‘Why?’ was thus far unsolved by Iybraesil’s scholars-- a humbling blow. He nestled his lance between her thighs and pulled her off the bed, lumbering towards her sister’s rounded, white vanity desk. Zelkodar did most of the work while Fioryth hung on and clumsily walked on her toes. She fought the urge to cover her face in front of the mirror, cheeks deep red. “Who do you see in there?” he whispered. “Myself,” she said. “And you.” Fioryth looked away from the face in the mirror. “...and Thellenvia.” “I don’t see her,” he replied, tilting her chin up and kissing the seer. She tried to forget everything else and focus on the present, gripping the pulsing piece between her thighs. Zelkodar picked up her right leg and set her foot on the vanity. If his girth weren’t in the way, she could have seen her inner being reflected in the mirror. “Don’t hide your face,” he directed, stooping to kiss her neck. “I want you to watch as I enter you. I want you to see what I see when I look at you.” Zelkodar grabbed her left leg and lifted it off the floor, taking the other off the desk. She cursed, surprised, as he lifted her clear of the ground and lined up his penis at her webway gate. What an utterly embarrassing position! It was like the entire craftworld was her audience, not just herself watching sheepishly in the reflection. He lowered her. Zelkodar mumbled a runeword of praise for every inch his cock pierced her. “I could tell you were all those words when I read your letters, but seeing is believing. To touch minds is to know.” He started to fuck her. Fioryth’s eyes were glued to his dick, where their bodies met and he slid in and out of her, each time slicker than before. The psychic reaction of aeldari mating was complete and the twin’s body was molded to his, crease clinging to his swollen ridge as it scraped out her honey and made a mess of her propriety. The overwhelming force brushed behind her clit and she breathed raggedly, vision clouded when he skewered her completely over his rod. How did normal people deal with this? This was so raw and inelegant. Her body knew it and now her soul saw it too: she was being bred. A powerful psychic convulsion tore at her womb; it seemed a silly concept that the organ could offer any pleasure, yet a warmth grew inside it and soon suffused throughout her body. Warp quakes throbbed with the rhythm of his thrusts. Fioryth saw the storm coming, an expulsion of the emotions of the past few years which bubbled up and boiled underneath her exterior. Her toes curled. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to stop it from tearing her apart. “Aah! Slow down! Slow down!” “Look at yourself!” Zelkodar commanded. “Look at the mirror!” Fioryth stared at her reflection filled with lust and embarrassment and confusion and misbegotten pride. He lowered her especially harshly over his manhood and the dam burst, his penis straining against her glistening confines as it released its thick gift. Fioryth’s mind was in complete synchronicity with her mate’s, vaginal walls begging for his essence. The ecstasy he shared with her wiped any resistance away. She blasted the vanity mirror with her orgasm juices, crying out in futility. A purgation of emotions drained out of her and she let her head fall back after the face in the reflection was so obscured by droplets, she wasn’t sure it was herself anymore. Actually, she was absolutely sure it was herself, but the person behind the squirt was someone different than she was before. They could be anything she wanted to be. ----- Ronahn deposited her against a drink table next to the stage. It wasn’t as ‘far away’ as Thellenvia would have wished, but it was close to where Gambhis was. Her partner excused himself momentarily while the adolescent’s mother was calling for the attention of everyone who’d gathered. Unlike more stuffy affairs involving family lines, a Black Day gathering was a haphazard, ‘tap your spoon on your glass to shut them up’ kind of event. “I give her the armor and we’re out of here, alright love?” He kissed her and lingered close for longer than Thellenvia wanted in her current state. “I think I want my next set to be yours.” She turned her face away and closed her eyes, feeling uncharacteristically demure. “You just want an excuse to take my measurements.” “No need. I’ve already got them memorized.” He stole a kiss off her forehead and returned to the stage. Most of the eldar calmed and turned their attention to the spectacle as Gambhis propped up a stasis chest with a clear quartz cover. The black and white mesh armor stood within, stoic and functional. Thellenvia figured if it protected her then that was all that mattered, but she supposed she could see how even matte mesh armor could be turned into a work of art to be proud of. The piece provided personal respect to the one who maintained it. On Thellenvia’s day of adulthood, she got second-hand armor provided by the craftworld, and she was beginning to feel some envy. The adolescent, Erimele, accepted the gift graciously, exhibiting an exuberance subdued compared to her previous exchange with Gambhis. The twin thought the girl might have been tearing up. Perhaps the weight of adulthood was hitting her? Before her hands left Gambhis’s, there were already shouts coming from the crowd. “Speech! Speech!” Thellenvia shook her head and puffed. The adolescent-turned-adult gazed eagle-eyed through the crowd. What poor schmuck would get picked to do tonight’s Black Day speech? Erimele’s gaze settled on her. “Thellenvia!” What? *Her?!* She was supposed to be the meretricious hanger-on to the actual star! “That’s right,” a man spoke up, “she serves aboard the frigate which scouted Fath.” “What a dutiful young woman,” came an older voice, with a choir of agreements behind it. Gambhis looked at her horrified, but Ronahn placed a hand on the twin’s back before she could figure out some elaborate reason to bow out. “I’ll escort you up,” said the sharp-eyed eldar, enjoying the show. “Wouldn’t want you to trip before your big moment.” The hall was freakishly silent as Thellenvia stepped onto the raised platform, helped up by Gambhis as Ronahn passed her off. The twin never assumed she possessed stage-fright, but there was a distinct feeling of distress, like she was naked in front of the crowd and baring herself for all to see. She stood in front of her boyfriend and leaned against him as she spoke. “Uhmmm… I’m not much of an orator,” she admitted. Think, think! What would Fioryth say to a crowd like this? Channel your twin… She’d chosen a bad time to draw upon Fioryth’s spirit. Chilly wraith-boner impaled her like she was an example to be mounted on an exodite’s wall and Thellenvia instinctually backed away, slamming a heel into Gambhis’s foot. Asuryan bless his soul, he stayed stone-faced and held her lightly to keep her stable. Altansar garnet spread from her nose outwards and she started saying the only thing she could think of while her sister was raised up and down over a phantom spear. “On the morning of my Black Day, my sister needed to drag me kicking and screaming out of the bed and into adulthood. I despised her at the time, but I’ve come to realize she was trying to show me her love, in her own way.” The immaterial rod showed her love as well. Fuck, Thellenvia… just say a bunch of bullshit, it shouldn’t require much thought. “So, to any adolescents who worry, I can confirm being an adult is not as terrible as you might think. You can begin your journey down a Path in earnest. You can explore all the things that make you happy, or sad, or any range of emotions. In fact, there are plenty of good things about being an adult.” …and hard things… and wet things… and things pistoning out and in and out and in. A team of servers entered the double doors hoisting the celebration’s giant platter of aspic. The jelly wobbled as they walked in tandem. “Just think about the operation we’re about to perform with the other craftworlds! If it’s successful, Ulthwe will have a stockpile of waystones for a new generation. We can have even more of these wonderful Black Days! And if you’re a fresh adult, perhaps…” She was weightless. Her arms were numb, clit buzzing from psychic backwash reverberating inside her twin and splashing across dimensions to titillate Thellenvia, make her faint as she stood in front of a mob of people who wouldn’t waste a second to laugh if she collapsed in front of them. She hadn’t messed up yet and she still felt deeply humiliated simply by being asked to do this. The servers carrying the jiggling cake took a right turn as they entered. To make it to the food tables, they planned on passing behind where the party-goers gathered. Behind the columns. Behind the first column. “...you can’t help but consider…” The apparition finished in her sister, unloading its ecto-fluidium in Thellenvia’s womb, pulsing cool ghost protoplasm over her essence as her pelvic floor squeezed but couldn’t stop a thing which didn’t exist. Her legs trembled. A psychic signal was floating from her soul, to her hormones, to her sacred chamber. She needed to stop them. She had to yell something out to the poor servers conducting the aspic to its destination: complete doom. Every aspect of what it meant to be Aeldari was assaulted at once by the psy-shock quaking in her soul, the wisp of life forever connected with her sister. There was only one thing on Thellenvia’s mind. “...having children.” Her ovaries released an egg. She held her composure as the servers disappeared behind the first column as a synchronized, cohesive unit. They exited the column in distress, aspic wiggling passionately, tray tipping from one end to the other as the eldar struggled to regain their footing after slipping over the squirt-slickened floor. Erimele cried out and pointed, and the crowd turned to watch the wreck unfold. Thellenvia fell against Gambhis. The valiant servers fought for all the honor of their path, but the ground won. Crushed by its own abundance, the giant aspic tumbled, splattering triumphantly. Pieces of cold vegetable and jelly were flung damp through the air, impacting columns, the wall, innocent people. Chunks of meat showered the audience with wet slaps. The screams of ravaged children echoed in the hall, sharp against the general chaos of the mob as they jostled about in panic. “Gambhis,“ the twin hissed. “We are leaving. *Now*.” He picked her up like she was his princess and effected an orderly withdrawal. The heat of the hall tickled his back as they exited the double doors and jogged down the spire’s boulevard. Others were beginning to file out as well, flicking cold-cut meat off their dresses and suits. “Feeling better?” Gambhis asked, slowing to a walk. Cut crystal stalactites protruding from the ceiling far above lit the massive, spiraling street with light-blue. “Much better,” she acknowledged. So much better in his arms. The evening had exhausted her, but after the final psychic scream, Thellenvia wanted nothing more than to lay in his arms for the rest of it, *conceiving* with him. It was a warm kind of love, compared to the typical broiling she felt. Gambhis looked backwards as if searching for someone. “I didn’t get to thank Ronahn for helping you. I assume you got along great?” “Why? Do you assume we’re fast friends after you abandoned me next to him?” “He told me he was a twin as well. I thought he would have shared that with you.” He hadn’t. Thellenvia immediately began rationalizing. How much did he know? How much could she explain away? …He’s probably done the *exact* same thing to his sister. Thellenvia broke out into uncontainable laughter, the stress of the night purging itself from her body not through squirt but emotion. She was still giggling by the time Gambhis lowered her into the sky car. ----- They listened to the rumble of the resonance-washer as it vibrated her sister’s sheets at the correct frequency, removing and whisking away unwanted particulates. Fioryth shifted underneath the throw blanket on the couch so her head popped out at Zelkodar’s chest. Both sisters pathologically searched for small, dark places to squirm themselves into. It just felt reassuring. “I can’t believe you’d get so into the roleplay you would inseminate me,” she sighed, more impressed than angry. “You thought I was roleplaying?” Zelkodar replied. “I stopped acting the second you said your safeword.” Fioryth tucked the blanket back over her and acted like she hadn’t heard him. Excitement mingled with fear in her heart over her companion. What was this limerent feeling? Even if he impregnated her tonight, the eldar birthing cycle required regular commitments of genetic material. Not that Fioryth was married to the idea of carrying this pregnancy forward without proper consideration and planning! “... but, you’re going to be returning home in a few days,” she argued. “So your seed is wasted in me.” Zelkodar lifted the blanket. “What if I don’t return home? What if the delegation forgets one unimportant eldar on their way back to Iybraesil?” The flagrant disregard for laws made Fioryth’s heart jump. “And you don’t understand men if you think a single one of them would claim they wasted their seed inside you.” She buried her head against him and thought. What if he stayed? Would she hide him from her sister? Would she have to let him into her room? She’d never allowed Gambhis to. An itch formed in her womanhood and a ghostly boner slipped sensually through her. She gasped automatically from the arousal, but it was lighter than she typically felt. Zelkodar hushed her. “Focus only on me,” he murmured, hiking her up and kissing her. “We shouldn’t,” she avoided. “My sister and I have never tried it at the same time.” “Then all the more reason to do so now,” he responded. Zelkodar picked Fioryth up and lowered her onto her back on the couch, spreading her legs and lapping up her juices. “Aah!-- *Thellenvia!* Are you listening to me? I said, *Thellenvia!*” The answer to the question of ‘what happens?’, as both men discovered, involved several more cycles of the resonance-washer and copious pauses for hydration. When the transport for the Iybraesil delegation left, it was minus one eldar. They didn’t realize his absence until they were halfway to the craftworld, and Tun’ahain was quite frustrated she hadn’t taken a head count before they took off.