Fic: Battlefield (Drace/Gabranth, not worksafe)
Battlefield
She is what she has made herself to be, through sweat and work; it is more impressive, even, than had she done it somehow by magic.
Final Fantasy XII, Drace/Gabranth. 500 words.
NC-17/MA/Not Worksafe.
There have been women -- and men -- of whom Gabranth would say, in his more poetic moments, that their body was a landscape for him to explore. Zecht was a hard wild country, lean and fierce under his hands; Maia was lush and gorgeous as the lowlands with their cataracts and ricefields; Nenein was like the woods, serious and dark and mysterious.
Drace is nothing like any of them, not even Zecht. Drace is a battlefield, and he can mark the history of her sallies and charges, her routs and defenses, on her skin. It is not only her scars that make her thus -- although she has those for certain, and he knows the stories behind them: the sharp clear mark where an assassin's blade, by unhappy chance, found its way between the seams of her armor to score the soft inner dip of her shoulder; the crosshatch of light scars made by an opponent's mace; the plethora of marks, fainter still, where blows or falls drove her plate mail into her skin. They tell a story clear enough, and yet even more so it is the lean hard muscle of her arms, the ridge plane of her belly, the way her breasts stand high on the muscles of her chest that tell even more clear the story of her dedication, and her fervor, and the way she has shaped herself. She is what she has made herself to be, through sweat and work; it is more impressive, even, than had she done it somehow by magic.
"You are beautiful," he says to her as he kisses the line of her throat, feeling the play of her tendons beneath his lips. He can feel her laugh, a soft vibration against his skin.
"Beautiful is the last thing I have striven to be," she says, tangling strong fingers in his hair to draw him lower, to her breast, and he goes without complaint.
"Then it is happy chance that you have achieved it anyway," he says, "and though it is not what I value most of you, still, I am shallow enough a man to enjoy it where I find it."
"I daresay there are more pleasing things you could do with your mouth than ply such base flattery," Drace says, but he can hear her laughter and it is as beautiful as she is. She tugs at his hair, and he resists long enough to feel the sting against his scalp -- a sharp sensation that rings down his body like the vibration in a bell, between his legs, which urgency he has been ignoring and continues to ignore. After a moment he complies with her silent urging and slides down on the bed, kissing each muscle of her belly, to the lushness of musk and heat between her legs.
"Then by all means," he says, kissing her inner thigh, feeling the muscles of her leg flex and extend, sleek, gorgeous: "I shall not waste any more time."
She is what she has made herself to be, through sweat and work; it is more impressive, even, than had she done it somehow by magic.
Final Fantasy XII, Drace/Gabranth. 500 words.
NC-17/MA/Not Worksafe.
There have been women -- and men -- of whom Gabranth would say, in his more poetic moments, that their body was a landscape for him to explore. Zecht was a hard wild country, lean and fierce under his hands; Maia was lush and gorgeous as the lowlands with their cataracts and ricefields; Nenein was like the woods, serious and dark and mysterious.
Drace is nothing like any of them, not even Zecht. Drace is a battlefield, and he can mark the history of her sallies and charges, her routs and defenses, on her skin. It is not only her scars that make her thus -- although she has those for certain, and he knows the stories behind them: the sharp clear mark where an assassin's blade, by unhappy chance, found its way between the seams of her armor to score the soft inner dip of her shoulder; the crosshatch of light scars made by an opponent's mace; the plethora of marks, fainter still, where blows or falls drove her plate mail into her skin. They tell a story clear enough, and yet even more so it is the lean hard muscle of her arms, the ridge plane of her belly, the way her breasts stand high on the muscles of her chest that tell even more clear the story of her dedication, and her fervor, and the way she has shaped herself. She is what she has made herself to be, through sweat and work; it is more impressive, even, than had she done it somehow by magic.
"You are beautiful," he says to her as he kisses the line of her throat, feeling the play of her tendons beneath his lips. He can feel her laugh, a soft vibration against his skin.
"Beautiful is the last thing I have striven to be," she says, tangling strong fingers in his hair to draw him lower, to her breast, and he goes without complaint.
"Then it is happy chance that you have achieved it anyway," he says, "and though it is not what I value most of you, still, I am shallow enough a man to enjoy it where I find it."
"I daresay there are more pleasing things you could do with your mouth than ply such base flattery," Drace says, but he can hear her laughter and it is as beautiful as she is. She tugs at his hair, and he resists long enough to feel the sting against his scalp -- a sharp sensation that rings down his body like the vibration in a bell, between his legs, which urgency he has been ignoring and continues to ignore. After a moment he complies with her silent urging and slides down on the bed, kissing each muscle of her belly, to the lushness of musk and heat between her legs.
"Then by all means," he says, kissing her inner thigh, feeling the muscles of her leg flex and extend, sleek, gorgeous: "I shall not waste any more time."