Archive of Our Own

The First, then.

G’raha believed he was ready for the consequences of joining himself to Syrcus Tower. He’d done hundreds of hours of research, stealing snatches of time to himself as they ran from safe place to safe place across the smoking, pockmarked wreckage of their star. Theory blended with practice in his mind until he could envision the results. The unfathomable wellspring of power; the ability to split apart the fabric of time and space, sewn into the cells of his once-mortal body.

All of it was focused on that one moment, that one last-ditch effort. If it failed, then they were lost. The star and all its countless lives, past and present and future, would be wiped away, reduced to so much dust. No pressure.

Immediately afterward, he lost consciousness for a while. The in-between place he carved out was black as a tomb, devoid of light and breath. His own heartbeat was pinched out like a candle-flame. If there was pain, he couldn’t feel it—it was whisked away along with everything else, until he was only a thread of aether, an echo of a feeling stretched across the weft of some immense shape he could barely perceive.

He woke to a new world and a new self. It was his body, but changed, somehow. Power brimmed inside him, hot and brilliant as the sun. He knew it was only the masterful technology of his Allagan ancestors that kept it from sweeping through him like a firestorm and scouring his flesh from the inside out.

The full impact of the change eluded him until he’d already put down roots in Norvrandt. He stumbled into government, taking on the mantle of Exarch when the people he helped were determined to crown him something. He was too busy to sleep most of the time, which was fine, since he could just borrow a little of Tower’s nigh-infinite reserves of power to keep going when the well ran dry. If he forgot to eat, aether helped take the edge off. It wasn’t a replacement for bodily function, but a supplement, extending his reserves the same way it extended his life, his cellular regeneration.

He tried not to abuse it at first, but the benefits far outweighed the detriments. The worst was a bit of a buzzing headache if he powered through on pure aether for too long, but that was easily remedied with a quick nap in the Ocular, his head pillowed on books in lieu of a proper bed. The grandiose room two levels up that he’d commandeered for his bedchamber was so infrequently used that he took to stationing a cleaning mammet inside, just so the place wouldn’t collect dust between visits.

He half-convinced himself he was invincible. Which was precisely the moment the long, winding arc of his not-quite-mortal shell snapped back into place, sending him reeling.

It began in the middle of the night. He jerked awake to the dim shadows of the Ocular flickering ominously where the magelights didn’t quite reach, sweating profusely under his robes. His heart was racing so fast he almost felt nauseous. Instinct dragged him out of the chair, away from his precious books, but when he knelt on the cold floor and clutched his cowl away from his face, nothing came up. The wave passed. He stared at his hand shimmering against the floor, one crystalline form blending into the next.

He was so unbearably hot. Fever? he wondered, feeling for his own pulse. It was rapid and light, like a butterfly struggling to burst from his neck. The haze of sleep clung to him as he stripped off his damp robes and stole silently through the lonely halls. No one was permitted inside the Tower after nightfall—not that it was easy to tell when exactly that was, these days—but he still felt a strange guilt prickling the back of his neck, half-expecting to find someone around every corner.

In his chambers, a mammet scurried underfoot, trying to ascertain his needs with its limited processing capacity, and he waved it away with a murmur. A bowl of tepid water waited beside a little-used vanity mirror. He splashed a handful over his burning face, but it did little to wash away the fog hanging over him.

He braced his hands against the table and leaned in close. The mirror was of Allagan design, of course, without a speck of silver to show its age. The face it reflected back at him was half a stranger. Crystal had begun to colonize his chest and shoulder, threatening to erase the Archon mark on the right side of his neck. Above that, his face was flushed and pupils slit tight. Sweat beaded on his upper lip.

Dizziness passed over him in a wave and he leant his forehead against the glass. Cold and hard and indifferent. The heat that curdled his blood moved sluggishly as he pulled at a thread of aether and tried to force it down. Down. Into a small ball, easy to purge—

It fought back. It was like nothing he’d ever felt; no hunger or thirst had ever resisted him like this. Even sleep had been willing to recede, to wait its turn. This new sensation was a snarling animal in comparison. It tore at its bonds and when he wavered, afraid to dampen it any more, it exploded like fireworks, trails of fire that crackled over his skin and sunk ravenous claws low in his gut.

Oh.

He shoved away from the mirror, shoulders heaving. He wore soft linen drawers under his robes, but they did nothing to hide the arousal burning vehemently between his legs.

Part of him wanted to laugh, small and hysterical. Of all things to break his ironclad control. But brushing it off wouldn’t fix the problem, so he dismissed the mammet, threw himself onto the bed, and pushed his drawers down around his thighs.

It was perfunctory and a little dry, but satisfactory enough. Afterward his chest was heaving like he’d run a marathon, and his tail lashed insistently against the sheets. He rolled over, wiped his hand on his smalls, and tried to sleep.

But the slow, ambient relaxation he’d found so many times in his youth refused to appear. Instead his heart continued to slam against his ribs, and the snarl of heat in his belly began to burn anew, clawing its way between his thighs. The blanket of contentment he’d sought was instead a gaping void, hungry and anxious. He was barely hard against his thigh, but the need went deeper than that. He craved something else. A hand not his own. A smiling mouth. The weight of another person at his side.

Nesting instinct, said some small, half-forgotten part of his brain. He wanted to scoff, but the dread was more potent.

“I can’t,” he whispered to the empty room. “Not now. I have too much work to do.”

The room did not answer back.

The Source, now.

“Stick out your tongue and say ah.”

“Ahhhhhhhh.”

Krile narrows her eyes as she peers into the back of G’raha’s throat. “Everything looks normal. No redness or irritation.” She plucks a mote-sized magelight from thin air. “Let me look inside your ears.”

“Krile, really, this is hardly necessary.” Even so, G’raha tilts his head down and to the side, fingers drumming nervously on his thighs as she inspects first one ear and then the other. “I’m a little under the weather is all. I’ll be right as rain in a day or two.”

“Hmph.” Whatever she’s looking for, she clearly can’t find it; a delicate furrow marches its way between her eyebrows as she hops down from the stool and dusts off her jacket. “Tell that to Tataru. I’ve never seen that girl cry, but she was on the verge after finding you facedown on the floor.” She props her hands on her hips and sighs. “Well, I’m no chirurgeon, but all your vital signs seem to be in order.” She holds out an imperious hand. “Let me check your blood pressure one more time.”

G’raha knows better than to protest. He proffers his wrist and tries not to fidget as she counts the passing seconds softly under her breath.

“A little elevated,” she pronounces at last, “but not out of the normal way… not that I have much of a baseline.” Krile frowns, tapping her toe on the floor. “All right, I’m going to have a look at your aether, if you don’t mind. Lay back, please.”

He obeys in silence and stares up at the ceiling as she continues to mutter to herself. The slight prickle of her magic has a flavor all its own, cool and fresh as springwater, with a dash of bubbles like a cask of new beer. It tingles where it passes over him, lifting the fine hairs on his arms and whisking away the nervous sweat that beaded up during the course of her examination.

They are alone in Dawn’s Respite, for a blessing. It’s where Tataru found him, passed out cold near the alchemical station. Thankfully the fall did no lasting damage—nothing more than a bruise that Krile easily smoothed away—but he still feels muddled, thick-headed like his skull is stuffed with cotton. Nervous energy seizes him in fits and starts, and it’s all he can do to avoid scratching at the phantom pains that twinge in his arm and chest and along the side of his neck.

“Easy,” Krile murmurs, and he jerks back to himself, his tail thumping restlessly against the sheets. She sighs and opens her eyes. “There’s definitely something not quite right, but I can’t see what. Explain your symptoms to me again?”

G’raha swallows. “A slight fever. I feel… anxious. Hypersensitive.” He curls his fingers into the palm of his hand, and the bite of his own fingernails is like the keen edge of a knife threatening to break skin. “Sort of muddled and dizzy.”

“Hmm. It almost sounds like a reaction to a badly-made potion. But you haven’t had anything besides food and water these last few days.”

He shakes his head in agreement. “Not since the aether supplement after we returned from the Tower.” The Tower. Just a word, but one he can’t help infusing with the capital T. Even here, in the Source, it will always be part of him.

Krile’s gaze falls to the medicine cabinet at the far end of the room. It isn’t locked—no one was permitted in the Rising Stones but Scions, after all—but she can see from here the shelves are stocked as they normally are. “And there’s no possible way someone could have slipped anything into your food or drink?”

“I mean… I suppose anything is possible.” He pushes himself up onto one elbow and then the rest of the way, until he’s sat on the edge of the mattress with his feet on the floor and his elbows poking obstinately into his knees. There is no comfortable position he can find, but there’s something about being grounded like this, steady on the floor and steady against himself, that makes the world spin a little bit less. “In which case we would have a bigger problem on our hands than a mere cold. But no one else has had any ill effects, have they?”

“No. You’re the only one…” Krile reaches out and pats his knee. “Stay here. I’m going to ask for a second opinion.”

G’raha’s ears prick up even as his stomach plummets. “Who?”

“Why, our resident aetherological expert, of course! If there’s anything I’m missing, she’ll find it. I’ll be right back.”

“Krile, wait—”

But she’s already gone. Damned lalafells and their swift feet. G’raha lets his chin drop to his chest and closes his eyes. The soothing residue of Krile’s magic has faded away, and his skin feels hot and clammy under his clothes. He has a brief instinct to strip naked and crawl under the covers, but resists the urge. If Y’shtola were to see him thus, his pride would never recover.

“G’raha Tia.”

Speak of the devil. Y’shtola sweeps into Dawn’s Respite with Krile on her heels, absent her staff but brimming with vigor all the same. She beelines to him and then looms, eyes unfocused but all her attention bent precisely in his direction.

“Y’shtola, I—”

“Hush.” She extends a hand, and for a moment he starts to lean into it, drawn by an undefinable urge to be touched. But he stops himself at the last moment and watches as she attunes herself to him, peering into the warp and weft of his very essence.

Y’shtola clicks her tongue. “Your aether is… tumultuous, to say the least.”

“It’s not growing thin, is it?” Krile asks anxiously.

“No. In fact, rather the opposite. It’s positively brimming.” Despite her businesslike tone, the corner of her mouth turns up in an easy smile. “It’s rather difficult to look at you directly, Raha.”

G’raha slumps, further divested of his professional pride to be called thus. “I thought as much.”

“Can you discern the cause?” Krile asks.

“Hmm… well, yes and no. I can see the axes of it. The places where it burns brightest.” She looks but does not touch, the weight of her eyes slipping from head to heart to… lower… and back again. G’raha wonders if the floor might be a dear and swallow him up. Y’shtola frowns. “How long has it been since you’ve had your heat?”

Krile makes a strangled sound. “Shtola!”

“It’s a perfectly natural occurrence, and a perfectly natural question considering the state of you.” Arms akimbo, Y’shtola regards him with a potent blend of curiosity and pity. “Well?”

“In this body?” G’raha asks weakly. “Or in the First?”

“Both.”

“Not since… well before I went to sleep.” He tries to do the math, but embarrassment and dizziness conspire to make him stupid. “Three years, perhaps. In the First, I… the Tower helped curb the worst of it, and about twenty years in I was able to fabricate a suppressant—”

“A what.” If she was stern before, now Y’shtola is positively furious. “That is highly inadvisable, G’raha.”

“I know that! But I had more important things to worry about, as you’ll recall.”

“More important than the continued function of your body? As it was slowly transmogrifying itself into living crystal? Yes, yes, I know perfectly well the trials you faced.” Y’shtola drops her hands and her anger in the same moment. “Foolish boy. So you’ve put off your biological clock for seventy-odd years in another body, then brought that mass of memory and fear and desolation along with you to the Source without bothering to deal with it first. I’m sure a few years of magically-induced slumber did you no favors, either.”

G’raha bows his head. “The Allagans weren’t entirely unaware of Miqo’te biology. But neither did they anticipate that one might inherit their royal legacy.”

“Indeed.” She folds her arms, still radiating disapproval. “This whole time, you had an inkling what this was about.”

He winces. “I… yes. But I had hoped for otherwise.”

Y’shtola sighs. “You worried us all most severely, Raha.” Her hand is cool and soft against his cheek, and it feels so good he wants to cry. “But come. You know best what you need. Tell us, so that we may provide it.”

His shoulders buckle under the weight of her request. “What I need is not something you can give. Nor would I ask it of you, if you could.”

“Nonsense.” Y’shtola’s brusque tone is an eddy in the current of his longing. It jerks him up, brings his head above water just long enough to gasp for air. “This body may be unfamiliar to you—and to us—but you’re a Scion now. You’re family. There is nothing we wouldn’t do for each other.”

At her side, Krile nods, tender yet firm. “There’s no need for shame or embarrassment, Raha. I promise, whatever you say, whatever you ask for, will be kept in the strictest confidence. And we shall think no less of you for it.”

For a fleeting instant he thinks to ask Y’shtola. An imperfect solution, but a safe one. She would be kind but clinical. A purely logical means to an end. And perhaps it would suffice. Perhaps they would be closer, after, a new sort of bond forged by necessity. But it would not be the only time. Can he really ask this of her again, and again… can he wear away at the fellowship between them, until she comes to resent him? To see this weakness for what it truly is?

“G’raha.” Her silver eyes look slightly past him, into him, observing the roiling tempest of aether inside his fragile vessel. “Do not tell me you mean to weather this storm alone.”

He opens his mouth to answer and is abruptly silenced as the door bangs open. All three of them whirl to look, Y’shtola a little more slowly. She already knows who it is.

“I came as fast as I could,” Lock puffs. He shuts the door behind him with his foot, half-falling into the room with his arms full of… tree branches?

“What on earth…?” Krile begins.

“Tataru sent me out for supplies. She didn’t know what sort, exactly, so I… brought a little bit of everything.”

The Warrior of Light dumps his leafy burden on one of the spare beds in a billowing rush of fresh air. The smell of the wild has followed him—damp soil and moss and crushed herbs—along with a crackle of aetherical energy, like a puff of smoke after a lightning-strike. He’s one of the few people G’raha knows who makes such frequent and unnecessary use of teleport spells. It’s surely going to get him into trouble someday.

“I hope there’s something here you can use.”

Krile’s open mouth slowly closes into a smile. “I’m sure there is, Lock, thank you.”

“You really didn’t have to go to all the trouble,” G’raha blurts. The balance in the room has shifted against him, and he has a sudden and terrible feeling that it’s about to tip entirely.

“It was no trouble. I know the Twelveswood like the back of my hand. Ow.” Lock turns his arm over to examine the scratches that some erstwhile bramble patch had laced across his skin. “Literally, it would seem.”

Krile giggles and goes to help sort through the bounty, but Y’shtola remains unmoved. She crosses her arms and looks down at G’raha once more. “Think on what we’ve said,” she tells him softly, the words blanketed beneath the sounds of Lock and Krile’s rummaging. “You have a little time yet, but not much. You’ve put it off for far too long already.”

“I know.” He bows his head. “Thank you, Shtola, for your council.”

“Hmph. Don’t thank me until you heed it, G’raha Tia.” She puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezes. Not a gentle squeeze, but a sturdy, warning grip that zings down his spine like a well-placed spell. “I’ll be in my rooms if you need me.”

Well. There it is. The implicit invitation. Curt, perfunctory, and far more than he deserves. He stares at the ground until she’s gone, and all that’s left is the quiet hubbub on the other side of the room.

“Krile.”

The hubbub stills. Krile, her small hands filled with spearmint leaves, turns to face him. “Yes?”

“Could you… give us a moment.”

The balance tilts again, wobbling dangerously. G’raha takes the axis in both hands and refuses to let go.

“All right. Just give a shout if I’m needed.” She passes the sprigs to Lock and steals from the room, quiet as a shadow. In her wake, Lock looks at him, brow furrowed, yellow eyes like two suns in the twilight of his face.

“It’s not serious,” G’raha manages to eke out. “That is, it won’t be. When I’ve… resolved it.”

“Resolved it.” Lock seems hesitant to approach him. A new development that scrapes at his skin like sandpaper. “Why was Y’shtola here?”

“Krile wanted a second opinion.” He offers a stale half-smile to cover the cold sting of sweat breaking out under his arms and at the base of his spine. The axis trembles in his grip. “Turns out it’s just a bit of… frenetic biology. I’m not quite used to this body yet.”

Seriousness enfolds Lock like a shroud. It stuns G’raha, sometimes, how easily he can switch back and forth, lighthearted in the face of danger one instant, deadly cold and calculated the next. Not that he would describe Lock’s current expression as cold. More… focused. Intense. It ratchets the breath in his chest so tight he can scarcely breathe.

“Can I…” Lock makes an aborted gesture that G’raha can’t interpret, but it doesn’t matter.

“Yes.”

He moves across the aisle in three easy steps and lingers at the foot of the bed where G’raha sits. His tail, long and narrow and tipped in the same tawny color that speckles his short-cropped hair, twitches back and forth, betraying his disquiet. “Tell me.”

He tries to conjure some of Y’shtola’s unbiased calm, to speak as though the body he inhabits is not his own, was never his own. “My time asleep in the Tower put a stop to my biological clock. I was alive, but… in stasis. The passage of time was outside my perception. But it wasn’t entirely frozen. It was just waiting for time to spring forward again. That is one complication. The other is… my mind. My memories. My soul.” He dropped his gaze to his hands. In his mind’s eye, they are immutable crystal, semi-transparent, cold and hard and filled to bursting with vital aether. The untold power of ancient civilizations coursing through him as his body slowly gave way. “During my time in the First, I was able to find a way to suppress my biological needs. I used my connection to the Tower to fence it off, keep it contained. I ignored it for as long as I could, but now that I’m here, my connection severed…”

“It’s all come back at once.” Lock’s gaze is unfocused, turned inward as he processes what G’raha told him. “And you have no Nunh to channel it.”

G’raha smiles weakly. The rush of words has left him bereft and empty, the zing of adrenaline still pinging around his ribcage. If he were to lift his hand he thinks it would be shaking. “I know that Keepers do things differently.”

Lock meets his eyes again, frank and open. “Not that differently.”

One step forward. Two steps. “Lock, I…”

“I’m sure we could find someone in Mor Dhona who could make something to… ease it for you. But to put it off entirely…” He shakes his head. “You can only do that for so long before it starts to negatively impact the body. You’re already feeling the effects of it.”

G’raha swallows. “Have you ever…”

He can’t finish the question, but Lock knows the answer anyway.

“Please. I know I’m youthful, compared to you, but I’ve been a man grown for nearly seven summers.” Lock’s sardonic grin fades a little. “You want to know how I handle it.”

“...Yes. If it’s not too personal.”

“I’ll be perfectly honest, the blessing of Light helps. It’s not quite so… overwhelming. But that’s no reason to avoid the inevitable.”

With careful movements, Lock sits on the edge of the bed next to him, each shift of weight telegraphed to avoid startling. There’s a handful of inches between their bodies, but G’raha can still feel the heat radiating off him, smell the crisp, loamy air of the Twelveswood clinging to his hair. There’s a smudge of dirt under his jaw that so distracts him he almost misses Lock’s next words.

“The first time after I joined the Scions, Y’shtola was kind enough to lend a hand.”

G’raha chokes. “Y’sholta—?”

The room rings with Lock’s laughter. “I wasn’t as afraid of her then as I am now. But no; in seriousness, she was very courteous. Professional, almost.” His smile fades a bit, turns melancholy. “A certain commander was there to help me through the next.”

G’raha feels himself turning red—redder than usual, anyway. “Lord Haurchefant.”

“Yes.” An uneasy laugh. “Forgive me, I did not intend for this to be a… a recitation of conquests.”

“There’s no need for apologies. We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for me.”

Lock shakes his head, dismissing his self-deprecation. “All I mean to say is that, whenever I’ve been in need, there was someone I could turn to to alleviate the burden. A friend or a trusted comrade… a lover.” His hand falls into the neutral territory between them, shale-colored skin stark against the crisp white sheets. There is no trace of the scratches Krile must have cured. No imperfection but the stain of soil under his nails, a scar near the joint of his thumb where some distant injury had permanently nicked the flesh. “G’raha.” His voice is low and sweet. “You have to ask me.”

G’raha’s heartbeat thuds in his ears. “I can’t,” he whispers. “I can’t ask this of you.”

“You can. I would give it freely.”

A trusted comrade… a lover.

“What if what I ask for is more than you can give?”

He summons all the dwindling strength of will he has left and meets Lock’s eyes, wide with… consternation? Surprise? G’raha cannot parse the emotion he sees there. Only the color, burnished gold, like two coins at the bottom of a wishing well. Stars he could fall into. Stars that are eclipsed as Lock smiles, umbral shadows cast beneath the curl of his lashes.

“No such thing.”

G’raha moves before he’s thought it all the way through. But there’s the rub—he has thought it through, over and under and upside-down, every which way that can be conceived. This unnamed thing he cannot ask aloud has already been drilled into his skull over a hundred sleepless nights, a hundred years alone, cold and desperate, aching for something forever out of reach. Their lips meet between one breath and the next and G’raha lets out a deeply embarrassing sound somewhere between a whine and a groan.

“Easy.” Lock’s mouth moves against his, teeth fraught, hands coming up to grip his biceps and hold him in place. The firm touch melts him like Y’shtola’s had earlier, but compounded. G’raha shudders and goes still. “Stay here.” Lock stands from the bed and releases him, only to cup the back of his neck in one hand at the cry that tears out of G’raha’s chest. “I’ll only be a moment.”

He doesn’t think he can wait a moment, not one single second. The room has become a haze; the clammy discomfort that’s been dogging his steps resolves into heat that squirms through his veins like a slow drug. But Lock is a blur: the click of a lock at the door, the crackle of a linkpearl and a murmured whisper—not to be disturbed, not even if the world is ending—then the shuffle of soft leather boots and the clank of a belt, and G’raha is surrounded again, smothered in the smell of him. Relief cleaves him in twain, pure as a Lightwarden’s blade, as Lock takes hold of his shoulders and pushes him down onto the mattress.

“We won’t be interrupted,” Lock is saying, he thinks. The particulars are drawing away at incredible speeds, leaving him bare, pried out of his shell to lay cracked and glistening on the beach. “Raha. Look at me.”

G’raha’s eyes snap open. Lock looms over him, licked all over with candlelight. The front of his shirt gapes open, half-unlaced.

“I have you. I’ll take care of you.” He bows his head and brushes the softest, sweetest kiss to G’raha’s lips. Entirely pure and undemanding. G’raha’s eyes prickle with unshed tears. “Do you trust me?”

“With everything I have.”

Lock’s tender smile turns almost impish, and his calloused thumb finds the divot beneath G’raha’s jaw, where the skin is tender and unmarked. “Good.”

The First, then.

Lakeland in summertime was wet and sweltering. Sweat dripped down his nose and landed with a plop in the soil where it was whisked away, fodder for the roots he was so carefully extracting.

Master Hewg had told him about the plant. Esotericus Maddericum. The blooms were tiny white stars at the tips of their long, leafless stems, and under the shallow soil their roots spread in a tangled web of threads and tubers. When his knife slipped and cut into one, the whitish husk opened to reveal a blood-red interior: rich in nutrients for insects that fed on them and in turn were harvested for their deep red hue. Like this, in their raw, unprocessed state, the tubers were potent medicine. Or poison, if one wasn’t careful.

Most medicine is just precisely targeted poison, the aged apothecary had told him, nose buried in a dusty tome. The library that would become the Cabinet of Curiosities was still in its fledgling state, and the majority of books on medicine could be found locked safely in Master Hewg’s storeroom, away from rot and damp. He guarded them jealously, but G’raha had the weight of the Crystal Exarch behind him—not to mention a touch of panic in his voice that he couldn’t quite disguise.

The heat had lasted nearly a week. By day it was easier to bear; there were so many things that demanded his attention, and the birth of a new city-state still swarming with refugees waited for no man, or mystel.

But the nights were torture. All the pent-up energy he’d hoarded during the day seeped out of him then, wracking his body with violent shivers that chattered his teeth and pulled sweat from his pores by the gallon. Any attempts to ignore the symptoms or simply wait them out were useless. He sat in the Ocular at his desk and stared unseeing at a book until spots danced before his eyes, to no avail. Eventually he always dragged himself to his room and huddled miserably in bed, panting through the throes of arousal and shame.

If only it were as simple as finding a partner to help him find release. Not that such an endeavor would have been simple, by any means. He was a fledgling monarch, with a very specific role and very specific steps that needed to be completed. A hundred years might seem a long time now, but they would rapidly close themselves in leaps and bounds until he was on the precipice of his grand endeavor, and if he didn’t ration his time and energy now, he would have nothing to show for it. Wooing someone at this stage—at any stage—was out of the question. He couldn’t afford to let anyone in. His identity must remain a perfect secret.

So he suffered. Sweated and writhed in the sheets, brought himself to tepid completion with a clumsy hand, and huddled in the center of the mattress between bouts, gritting his teeth against the gnawing hunger in the pit of his stomach.

It’s almost over, he would tell himself in the bleak, bright hours before dawn. One more day. Just one more day.

Six days passed this way, and when he felt the clouds begin to lift he went immediately to Master Hewg and begged his assistance. He was too sleep-deprived to be delicate about the particulars, and anyway, Hewg-Leeq was mystel, even if he was old enough to have sired three generations of kits by now.

To his utter horror, however, Master Hewg only seemed confused.

“I’m sorry, your grace, I’ve never heard of such a thing. What land did you say you were from, again?”

“It’s an unusual… a recessive gene,” G’raha said, scrambling to recover. “Forgive me, I hoped you would be at least passing familiar, what with your medical experience.”

“There’s no need for apologies, your grace.” The apothecary drifted to his collection of tomes, many of them salvaged from the smoking wreckage of Voeburt. “If it is similar in nature to the cycles of Ronso, there may be some suggestions I can offer. But I must caution you against overuse of… preventative measures. Ronso biology is quite different to our own, despite certain surface-level similarities.”

“I understand.” He understood, and he didn’t care. He would do whatever it took to keep another week like this last from happening again.

A few minutes of research and Master Hewg was able to point him in the direction of the red lily. The stores had been depleted in recent weeks—the plant was most commonly used as a stimulant to encourage cellular regeneration, a boon in the wake of the Flood—but if there was any still growing, it could be found growing in the roots of the oldwood trees in Lakeland, up the slopes from Fort Jobb toward Holminster Switch.

G’raha reflected on the apothecary’s instructions as he stuffed his satchel full of the stuff, hands shaking with exhaustion. The tubers had to be cleaned and trimmed, and brewed in a tea with lakewort moss to counteract the harsh effects of red lily on the stomach. Once a week before bed woud keep the worst of the symptoms at bay. Master Hewg had cautioned him repeatedly against overuse, but G’raha was not so sure. His metabolism belonged to the Tower, now. He would rather take too much and suffer a bit of indigestion than take too little and suffer even an hour of heat with no one at his side to quell it.

This is only a precaution, he reminded himself as he picked his way slowly back down to the valley, sweat sticking his hood to the back of his neck. His tail itched where it was stuffed down his trouser leg to keep it discreet. The Tower will keep this in check. It must.

The Source, now.

Lock kisses him unselfconsciously, and G’raha follows his lead. The weight of his presence slips over him like a heavy blanket, cozy and comforting. It takes the edge off his nerves, helps him break free of the paranoid rigidity to shove his fingers into Lock’s hair. He’s not used to it like this, yet, so short and choppy, only just barely long enough to grab fistfuls of. He gives an experimental tug and Lock bites down in answer, a hot-white sting that pulses all the way down to his cock.

“How do you need it?” Lock asks between kisses, fumbling one-handed with the hem of G’raha’s shirt. He yanks up, up, exposing his soft belly to the open air. G’raha squirms at the hot, wet feeling of Lock’s mouth as it trails from sternum to navel, following the path of fur to where it thickens at the waistband of his trousers.

“I-I don’t know. Fast. A little… a little rough.”

“Mm.” A short, wordless sound that somehow communicates a wealth of meaning: approval, appreciation, pleasure. Lock gives up on the shirt and starts working on G’raha’s belt buckle. He’s so hard it hurts, so hard he can’t bother to be embarrassed at the way he fairly leaps into Lock’s questing hand.

“Look at you.” Lock’s fingers are long and sinuous and perfect as they curl around his erection and give a gentle squeeze. G’raha yelps and sinks his teeth into his own bunched-up shirt. The head is fully retracted and rosy, weeping a steady stream of precome over Lock’s thumb. Lock dips his head and drags his tongue over his own knuckles, then up, delicate and soft as silk around the slit. G’raha shudders. “You’re beautiful.”

“Lock, please…”

“Right. Fast and rough, wasn’t it?” Lock flashes him an impish smile, then leans down and takes him right to the root.

G’raha shouts his surprise and pleasure to the ceiling, bucking his hips. He hears Lock choke, but he can’t help himself—the rut has him in its grip now, and any trace of civility has fled. Thankfully it doesn’t seem to matter. Lock takes his hips in a bruising grip and swallows again and again, barely lifting off him long enough to gulp for air. G’raha’s tail is pinned beneath Lock’s chest, so the rest of him writhes to make up for it. His shirt falls from his mouth as he gasps and claws at the sheets, whining in the back of his throat. It’s a sharp, desperate keening that rises and rises until suddenly it snaps like a cord and he spills down the back of Lock’s throat.

He almost blacks out. Sparks dance behind his eyes and his breaths rasp out of him in thin bursts, and all he can hear is his own heartbeat in his ears. Then, slowly, he registers the soft pressure of lips on his belly, his flank; a gentle hand stroking a soothing pattern on the opposite hip. His trousers aren’t even all the way off. His cock, cool and tacky with evaporating saliva, is still half-hard against Lock’s cheek.

“Fuck,” he says. He looks down. Lock is watching him with a mischievous expression. When G’raha looks at him, his ears twitch and his curving mouth disappears against the meat of G’raha’s thigh.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you swear before.”

A startled laugh wheezes out of G’raha’s chest. “Perhaps you haven’t been listening closely enough.”

“Hmmm.” Another kiss, and Lock gives his undone trousers a tug. “May I?”

G’raha flushes, for some reason. There’s nothing more to hide, but there’s something about being entirely bared to him that tightens the clasp of his ribs. “Y-yes.”

His hesitation must sound as palpable as it feels. Lock takes his hands away from his trousers and puts them on the mattress instead, crawling up to lay propped up at G’raha’s side. The hand that had only recently been holding the base of his cock now brushes a careful, questing touch to his cheek. “I’d like to kiss you, if that’s all right.”

G’raha’s chest swells. “You don’t have to ask.”

His mouth tastes a little sour this time, but it passes. G’raha kisses him the way he wants to be kissed, to be touched: deep and slow and sure. Lock responds on a dime. Open mouth, hot and wet where their tongues slide together, soft and dry as his hand squeezes at G’raha’s chest. G’raha can feel his arousal building again, but the anxious edge is gone, smoothed over. He reaches out, tugs Lock’s shirt out of his belt to feel the smooth, warm skin of his back. Lock’s breath hitches and a minute later the low, gruff rumble of a purr kicks up in his chest.

He’s not nervous anymore. He writhes and wriggles until his trousers can be kicked off, then his smallclothes. Lock’s breeches are rough against his naked legs, a sweet contrast to the softness of his chest and belly as he finally drags his shirt over his head.

Lock is flecked with scars, peppering his deep gray skin like constellations. G’raha wants to explore them all, find their beginnings and endings and learn their histories—but later. Later. Right now Lock is sucking marks into his neck and shoulder, following a path that had been crystallized into him in another body, another life, and G’raha can feel his erection prodding stiffly into his hip as they rock together. He gets a hand between them to squeeze it through the rough cotton, and Lock’s purr cracks apart into a growl.

“Raha.”

“I want it. Now.” The words fall out of him without asking, and he realizes the rut has returned in force. “I want it in me.”

“Fuck.” For the first time, Lock’s careful mask slips, and G’raha can read the need written there like the pages of a book. “G’raha. Twelve preserve…”

G’raha squeezes, finds the shape of him through cloth. Lock’s eyes are twin circles of fine gilt thread, swallowed almost entirely by pupil. G’raha holds his gaze as he rubs him, relishing each ragged breath, each soft, suppressed cry.

“All right. All right, yes, you’ve made your point—”

Lock rolls away from him and shoves at his breeches. He doesn’t even both pushing them past his knees, just bares his muscled thighs and returns to G’raha like a homing signal, settling between his legs and kissing him hard enough to bruise.

“There’s oil—” G’raha begins, but the words fall away. Lock has two fingers on the head of his prick, slick and weeping again. His hand curls tight and jerks him mercilessly, milking the precome out of him until he’s nearly ready to come again—then he smears it down between his legs, massaging it over his hole with blunt, insistent pressure. G’raha’s eyes roll back and he grabs at the backs of his thighs. “Fuck, please… please…”

Lock draws his hand away and slips his forefinger into his mouth. G’raha covers his face with his hands. He can’t watch—he’s afraid he’ll spend himself just from the sight alone of Lock slicking his fingers with his own saliva. Some long, excruciating moments later he feels the wet slide of fingers, smooth pressure, and then… in. One finger, then two, easing him open. It’s not a difficult job. His body knows what it wants, and it strains with every cell to open the way.

“Now,” G’raha whispers. “Please.”

If it weren’t for the burning clutches of his rut, it might’ve hurt a little. Lock is big, or at least bigger than G’raha, and there’s a sturdy thickness to the base that might, if G’raha is lucky, grow into a knot. He wants it so bad he can barely think. That want, that need, eases the way along with spit and precome, and suddenly Lock is fully seated, braced over him and breathing like he’s run all the way from Saint Coinach’s Find without stopping.

“Are you,” G’raha pants, “all right?”

Lock’s eyes squeeze shut. “Yes.” He shudders. “I… will be.”

G’raha knows how he feels. Lock hasn’t even moved, but G’raha feels like he could come apart from the slightest nudge. The feeling swells in his chest—he’s here, he’s with you, inside you—and for a moment he’s afraid he might say something incredibly stupid.

Then Lock moves, and the spell is broken.

Sparks burst behind his eyelids at the first thrust; the second tears a yelp out of him that echoes in the empty room. Lock puts a hand over his mouth, salty with sweat and calloused from years of lancework, and grins down at him wide enough to show his Keeper fangs. “Careful,” he croons, “or the whole Rising Stones will know what we’re up to.”

He doesn’t sound displeased by the notion, but embarrassment swallows G’raha whole, and he nods, nuzzles into Lock’s palm. The next thrust is easier, and soon they find a rhythm. The snap of Lock’s hips, the deep grind of his cock inside G’raha’s guts, the hot, harsh breaths against his cheek. It’s hard to get a full breath with Lock’s hand over his mouth, and it only compounds the blurred physicality of being fucked into the mattress. He has no more room inside him to be embarrassed. He’s too stuffed with other, more important things.

Then everything stops. Lock goes perfectly still above him, their hips completely flush; the stretch has gone from bearable to exquisite, and G’raha trembles where he’s pinned like a mouse trapped under a glass.

“What—what is it?”

Lock’s eyes are wide and a little… afraid? “I’m sorry, I—I didn’t expect this to happen.”

An icy chill sweeps over him, and his cock wilts a little. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Lock is still hard inside him, at least. After a moment or two, he reaches down and puts a warm, heavy hand on G’raha’s thigh, soothing. “I guess I underestimated the effect you have on me.” His smile is small and self-deprecating, almost apologetic as he takes G’raha’s hand and leads it to where they’re joined.

Oh. Yes. Of course. G’raha’s mouth floods with saliva as he feels the hot, slick stretch of his own hole, the thick knot forming at the base of Lock’s erection. It seems to swell beneath his touch, and Lock shudders, eyes falling shut as G’raha struggles to fit his hand around its girth.

“I don’t—I can finish you off and then, um, take care of it myself,” Lock is saying, but the words barely penetrate G’raha’s remaining brain cells. It’s as if he’s speaking underwater. The hot flesh beneath his hand has consumed all of his attention, and as he explores it grows to full size, definitively stopped by the tight ring of G’raha’s asshole.

“I think,” G’raha says hoarsely, “we’re going to need oil, now.”

Lock swallows audibly. “Then you…”

“What part,” G’raha growls, “of I want it in me did you not understand?”

Lock is frozen for a moment, ears flat to his skull in submission. Then he leans down and slots their mouths together. G’raha wasn’t expecting it and he mewls, flushing hot with embarrassment as Lock sucks on his lower lip. Slowly, Lock pulls out of him, but G’raha is too entranced by his tongue to feel the loss.

“Hold still,” Lock whispers. “I’ll be right back.”

G’raha’s heart slams against his ribs as Lock shimmies the rest of the way out of his clothes, kicking them to the floor. Naked, he is a vision. His dark skin gleams with sweat, and his tail lashes furiously behind him as he goes to the fully-stocked medicine cabinet at the far end of the room to find what he needs. On the return trip, G’raha is treated to an uninterrupted view of his cock, fully erect, weighed down by the knot so that it bobs against his thigh with every step.

“Turn around,” he murmurs, one knee up on the mattress.

G’raha gives one last, longing look—the smear of shadow between his thighs, the plummy, gleaming tip of his cock—and rolls onto his side.

Lock slots himself behind, and G’raha hears the pop of a cork being released. There are lips at the nape of his neck, the bow of his shoulder. He turns his face into the pillow and moans softly at the first slippery press of fingers inside.

He’s already loose enough for two fingers, and a third eases in alongside without much effort. He feels incredibly sensitive to every minute change—the scrape of oiled callouses, the slight catch where one of Lock’s claws is just a little too long. He hisses but presses back against it all the same. Lock spreads his fingers and nuzzles his approval into G’raha’s sweaty neck.

“Just a little more,” he murmurs when G’raha whines impatiently. “You’re being so good for me, Raha.”

G’raha’s eyes roll back in his head, and he’s suddenly grateful to be facing away. It means he doesn’t need to school his expression of agony and longing as Lock mouths at his shoulderblade, whispering encouragement and praise as he readies him for his knot.

I dreamed of this so many times, he thinks, shoving his face into the pillow. His tail flips erratically against Lock’s hip and he shoves his hips back into it as a fourth finger eases inside. Countless nights spent with your name on my lips, and it was never quite as wonderful as the real thing.

“You’re ready,” Lock says at last. It’s not a question; he’s not asking for permission. G’raha, his brain a puddle of goo in his skull, can only nod. “Tell me if it hurts.”

I won’t, G’raha thinks hazily. It won’t. It’s you.

Lock pushes into him slowly. Steady and unflinching. G’raha’s teeth puncture the pillowcase. If it was good before, now it’s interstellar—the oil smooths over the rough edges, dribbles down over his perineum and softens everything to a bright golden smear of sensation.

Then he feels it. Wider than the rest of his cock, thicker than four of his sturdy lancer’s fingers spearing him in place. He moans and pushes back against it. Lock’s breath is hot and frantic in his hair.

“Raha…”

“Want it,” he mumbles, just barely coherent enough to reach back and take Lock’s thigh in a death grip. “Want you.”

There is pressure, hot and stinging. G’raha bears down, nails digging into Lock’s flesh, and suddenly, miraculously, he’s inside. All of him.

“Fuck.” Lock’s voice is a wreck. One hand skids down G’raha’s front and takes his cock in a firm, slick grip. His hips grind in place once, twice. “I’m not going to last.”

G’raha can’t think of anything more wonderful. “Promise?”

Lock chokes out a laugh and gives his prick a firm squeeze. “Yeah.”

Time slows, warps, becomes still. All he can feel is the knot shoving at his insides as Lock grinds against him, the weak, erratic grip of Lock’s hand around his prick. G’raha’s sense of self fades away—he is boiled down to his essentials until even that is only mist, consumed by pleasure. The only thing left of him is the hot kernel of his rut, swelling in Lock’s hand until it bursts like a seed beneath the ground, shooting tendrils of green toward the sky in search of sunlight.

He blinks his eyes open some time later, sticky with sweat, his heart slowing in his chest. Lock is plastered to his back and purring so hard he can feel it vibrating down to his core. The knot is still in him, firmly seated; when he shifts his hips a little, it tugs at the stretched rim of his hole, making him whine.

“Sorry,” Lock mumbles. G’raha’s braid has come loose at some point, and Lock nuzzles into the loose, sweaty strands of his hair, teeth grazing against his sensitive nape. “Just a few more minutes.”

G’raha’s eyes fall shut again with an incoherent mumble. His purr is a little more mellow than Lock’s, soft like desert sand. They meld together, two frequencies just slightly out of sync. I’ll wait forever, he thinks muzzily. His lips, kiss-bruised, move against the pillow without sound. For you, I’ll wait as long as it takes.

The First, then.

He often dreamed of ancient Allag. An after-effect of the gift bestowed on him by Doga and Unei. Sometimes his spirit wove with history, becoming part of the weft of time; other times it stood apart, at the edge of a grand precipice as the world was brought to its knees.

He dreamed, too, of Syrcus before it was The Tower. When he was only a humble Student of Baldesion chasing dreams, dogging the footsteps of a hero on the cusp of greatness. Memories blurred, became nonsensical and unrealistic. He was on the ship from the Isle of Val to Sharlayan when the sonic boom hit, ripping the sails to shreds and plunging half the the ship into violent paroxysms of aether sickness. He was climbing the Tower in his younger body, heart racing fit to burst from his chest as some unknown creature snapped at his heels. He was in a tent with the flap flung wide to let in the balmy summer heat, his skin a sheen of sweat, swallowing cries of pleasure as someone held him down and devoured him.

In the dream it was always Lock, even though such a liaison had never occurred during their time together exploring the Crystal Tower. G’raha’s interest had been but a fleeting prelude to the devotion it would become, and Lock… he had no notion of how the other man felt at the time. He hadn’t known him well enough to divine it by looking, and wasn’t brave enough to ask. But in the dream they were everything: brothers, lovers, wedded companions, strangers, old friends. They were together in sweeter, softer days, and every time he woke, his chest felt tight and his body thrummed with arousal that refused to be denied.

His conviction held fast for three cycles of the moon. The bitter tea became a regular fixture at his desk in the Ocular, and any spare time he had was devoted to experimentation, searching for ways to pare his biological needs down to the barest necessity. Food tasted of little more than sawdust, and did not satiate him—his stomach had a strange, hollow quality about it, but he no longer felt the pangs of hunger. Sleep was a distant memory. Instead of sleeping, he meditated, spending an hour here or there sat upon a cushion, breathing deeply, focusing only on the thrum of the Tower’s heartbeat in him. His connection to it grew stronger by the day, even as his mortal shell began to fade.

Physically, he was more a mammet than a man. Emotionally… he could not say the same.

The fourth full moon came upon him, invisible behind the veil of Light, as he wandered the cold halls of the Tower alone. These levels had not yet been cleared of their ancient caretakers, but his blood was sufficient deterrent to attack. He liked to walk among them, when the ache for the Source became too much to bear in silence. He admired their boundless strength and energy, the aetheric density of their forms, propelled in perfect synchonicity even after thousands of years. He sometimes wondered whether Azys Lla still kept such perfect time. Both had been abandoned, but the Tower’s reserves of power were deeper, nearly endless.

He had spent the last few days traveling, attending to diplomatic matters in Eulmore, and his ironclad control was in desperate need of replenishing. Though he could draw from the Tower’s power anywhere inside its confines, he found the Observatorium near the top to be particularly stimulating. Crystalline windows looked out over the whole of Norvrandt; it was here that he felt most connected to this world, the miraculously still-beating center of it, with his domain spread beneath him like a patchwork quilt. Even the sting of unending Light could not wash out the beauty of the First when he beheld it from on high.

Climbing to the peak felt like a ritual all his own. He gathered threads of power as he went, drawing them behind him like a bridal train, fingers curled in nearly to the palm as he counted each step, each breath. The rush of so much energy dizzied him. He felt simultaneously all-powerful and incredibly frail, as if the slightest breeze would shatter him and make him an explosion of dazzling crystal, each shard flung outward into the sky over Norvrandt.

At the top of the tower he went to his knees. His heartbeat was strong and sure in his chest, and he was sweating lightly under his robes from the exertion. He felt present in his body for the first time in a long time. With a sigh of relief, he shed his robes, unlaced his sandals and bracers. His tail, freed from its confines, swept happily across the cool crystal floor, and his head dropped to his chest as he opened himself to the Tower.

You have been gone for an eternity.

The voice in his head was of his own making, he knew. The Tower’s fabricated sentience could not be heard or felt apart from the terminals scattered throughout the structure, and here, knelt on the floor in the center of the room, he was some distance from the nearest one. What he heard was his own mind’s interpretation of the Tower’s greater will, coalesced and distilled into an imagined intelligence. It had no concept of time or space apart from what he gave it. It had no understanding of human needs or desires.

“I am always with you,” he said aloud to a being that did not exist, that could not understand him. “And you are always in me.”

His connection with the Tower, fragile and frayed after a week away, surged through his veins like wildfire. He shuddered and hunched against the onslaught, arms around himself in self-defense. He hadn’t traveled so far in a long time; he’d forgotten how scouring it was, how all-encompassing. He struggled with it for a few minutes, or maybe hours, trying to wrest back control of the flow. But it wore at him and wore at him until he was sprawled face-down on the cold crystal tile, out of his head, every inch of him thrumming and throbbing with the strength of a thousand thousand years of sunlight.

You will not stray again. The voice that was not a voice was dispassionate, barely human. He fought the rising tide of warmth and pressure with a mild panic, but he was too overcome to fight back.

“I will do what I must.”

The last defense he had was his own mind. He retreated there, watching himself from that higher plane, the rhythm of the Tower running through his body like water. Then he turned his back and sank into memory, into fantasy. He stood apart, flesh made flesh, no longer a prisoner of crystal. He walked freely through the lavender woods of Lakeland, and waded in the cool, lush waters of the Source. He wandered the sands of Ahm Ahreng and slept in the grand, mossy boughs of Rak’tika. At his side was a shadow, a friendly shade. Warmth and softness and dark. It curled its arms around him to hide him from the Light, kissed his mouth with honeyed sweetness. When his body gave up the ghost and spilled onto the crystal floor, the vision in his mind crooned words of encouragement and bore him through the aftershocks to a place of soft relief.

Lock, he said, aloud to an empty room. He opened his eyes, waiting, but the Tower did not answer back.

The Source, now.

It takes nearly a quarter bell for his knot to go down. By the time he slips free, clear-headed at last, G’raha has fallen deeply asleep, each breath rough-edged with the purr that hasn’t quite left him even in sleep. Lock pets his sweaty hair back from his cheek, looking for a frown or a smile or a tell-tale flutter of eyelashes. Nothing.

He slips from the bed, suppressing a groan at the stiffness in his limbs. The floor is cold under his bare feet and it climbs up his legs like a draft. His tail fluffs up a little in self defense and he hurriedly wipes off the worst of the cum and sweat before pulling on his clothes.

In bed, G’raha Tia slumbers on. Lock stands at the edge of the mattress and looks his fill, too heavy-headed with orgasm to feign politeness. With the sheets tangled around his legs, the rest of him is bare, readily admired—the bruises scattered over his hips and thighs, the surprisingly plush curve of his arse, the sex flush still cooling on his face and chest. He is a vision, debauched and perfect. Lock rubs a hand over his face and reaches for the blankets.

Halfway through pulling them up over G’raha’s nakedness, he pauses. G’raha’s tail, shorter and fluffier than Lock’s, has shifted to expose him. His hole is red and puffy, still shiny with oil, leaking a steady stream of spend onto the sheets. Lock’s mouth waters.

Calm down. He fetches a fresh cloth and wipes him clean as gently as he can. Despite the intimate touch, G’raha doesn’t stir, and Lock is able to tuck him into the sheets and slip from the room without disturbing him.

Evening has fallen hard over Mor Dhona while he was otherwise occupied. Most of the Scions who aren’t currently on a mission have relocated to the bar, leaving the Rising Stones largely unoccupied. The only people remaining are scattered on the far side of the room, tending to gear or deep in conversation, except for two: Thancred and Urianger are availing themselves of the plush couches situated near the entrance to Dawn’s Respite, enjoying a little conversation of their own, opposite one another but legs tangled and eyes only for each other. The plummy evening air wafts in through a window as Lock passes by, carrying Thancred’s voice.

“The conquering hero returns.”

Lock bristles, and he barely hears Urianger’s admonishing whisper. “Beg pardon?”

Thancred is grinning at him with all his teeth, two fingers tapping furtively against the rim of his glass. Something malt and golden swirls inside; Lock’s sensitive nose wrinkles at the fumes. “I have to say, you surprise me, hero. I didn’t think you had it in you to go for something so… exhibitionary.”

A surge of thorny protectiveness swells in his breast, and Lock is too sex-drunk to bite it back. “You may keep your thoughts to yourself, Waters. If it’s too noisy for you, you can go drink elsewhere.”

Thancred’s smug grin drops away, and even Lock is surprised at himself. He’s never spoken to any of the Scions that way before, snappish and irritable; but there’s something hot and angry boiling in him, the urge to shield G’raha from any trace of mockery even when he’s not in the room, and he doesn’t know how to suppress it.

“No offense was meant, my friend,” Urianger is saying peaceably. He’s been drinking, too, but his smooth voice doesn’t waver as he puts a restraining hand on Thancred’s knee. “Pray forgive him his indiscretion.”

“Indiscretion?” Thancred squawks. “He’s the one who—”

“Enough, Thancred.” Urianger’s quelling tone snaps Thancred’s mouth shut like a vise. The rosy hue that creeps up Thancred’s face is not entirely from alcohol, Lock would stake his last MGP on it. Urianger turns to Lock. “Thou art kind, my friend, to be so attentive to G’raha Tia in his hour of need. If it would avail you, might I offer a silencing charm for your privacy?”

Shame sweeps over him like a flood, and Lock bows his head. “I… yes, thank you. I apologize for my outburst, Thancred. I don’t know what came over me.”

A knowing glint sparks in Thancred’s warm eyes, but he suppresses whatever crude joke springs to his lips and salutes him with his glass of rye. “Forgiven and forgotten, my friend. Godspeed.”

“The charm will be ready upon your return,” Urianger says, politeness ever fixed in place as sure as the north star. He pulls some bauble from the depths of his astrologer’s garb and spins in between his fingers, murmuring under his breath. Lock gives a hasty bow and makes his escape.

The kitchens are empty at this time of night. Lock’s pupils adjust swiftly to the darkened room and he moves about like a shadow, putting together a tray: fresh fruit, a pot of tea, some scones Tataru had baked that morning, a wedge of cheese. He dithers a bit over the wine rack, but forgoes it in favor of a pitcher of sprite apple cider. There is running water to be had in the Respite, thanks to innovations from the Doman refugees, in case G’raha prefers something less sweet.

Lock’s last rut was some time ago, before being whisked away to the First, but he remembers clearly how the body craves strange things. He tends to develop an unconscionable sweet tooth, but he’s known Miqo’te who prefer other, stronger flavors: salt and vinegar or Ala Mhigan spices. He doesn’t know what G’raha craves—maybe G’raha himself doesn’t even know. Hopefully this simple collection of odds and ends will satisfy him. Lock isn’t confident enough in his culinary skills to assemble anything more complex.

The silencing charm is ready when he passes back through the Rising Stones, as promised. Thancred has disappeared, probably to his chambers, but Urianger bestows the charm upon the tray with a smile and the slightest suggestion of a wink. Lock struggles to keep his ears upright. Thancred has been a bad influence on him.

He opens the door to the Respite with his elbow and backs inside as quietly as he can. But when he turns to set the tray on the bedside table, his stomach plummets. The bed where he’d left G’raha sleeping peacefully is empty, the sheets pulled hastily to the dented pillow. All other evidence has been tidied away—the bottle of oil, the cloth Lock had used to clean him with, even Lock’s tunic is missing from the floor where he’d dropped it in his haste—and there’s a draft blowing in from the open window high on the wall. G’raha Tia is nowhere to be seen.

“Raha?”

His voice cracks a little, unbidden. For the first time in a long time, he stands paralyzed with indecision, wavering as the floor seems to shift beneath his feet. G’raha fled, that much is certain, but where? And why?

You came on too strong, is his first instinct—but surely not. He remembers all too clearly the way G’raha had begged for it, the way he’d writhed beneath him, hot and wanting and so unashamed. And before that, his nervousness, his sweetness. What if I want more than you can give?

Impossible. Lock would give him anything. Even space, if he so chose. But the method of his exit leaves something to be desired. Mind made up, Lock turns back the way he had come, eyes scanning the room for someone trustworthy.

Urianger had already made himself scarce, but Krile—blessed Krile—is chatting with a Viera scout whose name Lock can’t remember. At the sight of him standing in the door of Dawn’s Respite, tray in hand and a furrow carved deep into his brow, she swiftly concludes the conversation and makes a beeline for him.

“Lock. Is everything all right?”

“I don’t know. Have you seen Raha?”

“He just went up to his rooms, I believe.” She does a slow spin, surveying the room. Almost everyone has relocated either to the dormitory or to the bar. “He passed through just a moment ago. Rather in a hurry, come to think of it. Is he… feeling better?”

She’s blushing as she says it. She knows, then. That makes things marginally easier. “I thought so. I, er, helped him out a bit. But I went to get him a bite to eat and when I came back he was gone.” The weight in his stomach sinks deeper, colder. “I… I’m worried that I did the wrong thing.”

Krile takes him in silently: the tray in his hands brimming with sustenance, his rumpled shirt, hair sticking every which way and tail lashing low and frantic against the backs of his calves. Lock feels the hot flush of embarrassment crawl up his neck and face at her tiny, knowing smile. “I find that very hard to believe. Perhaps he simply didn’t want to burden you further.”

He wants to scoff—as if G’raha could ever be a burden!—but her words soothe him anyway. “I suppose I’d better track him down and correct that assumption.”

She beams, still rosy-cheeked but no longer missish. “Take good care of him, Lock. He needs a gentle touch, I think.”

How do you want it?

Fast. A little rough.

Lock clears his throat. “I will. Thank you, Krile.”

He quickmarches out of the room before he can embarrass himself any further, up the stairs to the third floor. G’raha’s rooms are on the smaller side—just a bedroom and a storage space retrofitted into a water closet—tucked away at the end of a hallway overlooking Revenant’s Toll. Lock has been inside a handful of times for tea or cards, but now he hovers on the threshold with a heavy lead sinker low in his stomach, listening for the telltale sounds of occupation.

“Raha?” he says at last, scraps of courage gathered around him like a patchwork quilt. He knocks the corner of the tray against the door lightly, twice. “Are you there?”

A faint rustling can be heard on the other side of the door, then the snick of the latch. The door opens a crack, revealing G’raha’s ruddy, downcast face, the rest of him bundled into a fluffy gray blanket. “Lock. I thought… forgive me, I didn’t expect you.”

His voice is soft and strained, thick with untamed arousal. The smell of him is an aphrodisiac in Lock’s nose, spicy and sweet, with an undercurrent of something richer and muskier that makes his mouth water. Lock swallows hard and gets ahold of himself. “Can I come in?”

Wordlessly, G’raha stands back, opening the door just wide enough to admit him. Lock steps inside and takes in the room at a glance: the bedsheets askew, clothes on the floor, a fire guttering in the hearth. The window is open to admit the cool autumnal breeze, and it helps clear his head a little. Then he sees his own discarded tunic crumpled up in the center of the bed and logic nearly makes a break for it.

“I left to get you something to eat,” he says, rather nonsensically, as he sets the tray on the broad window ledge. He turns back to find G’raha leaning against the closed door, practically invisible in his cocoon of blanket. Only his face peeks out, eyes glimmering and nearly black with his pupils swelled to their full size. “Why did you leave?”

G’raha won’t meet his eyes. “I thought you… had had enough.”

He bites back a scoff. “How long do your heats usually last?”

“Unaccompanied… a few days. Sometimes a week.”

“And accompanied?” Lock steps closer, testing the boundaries. G’raha doesn’t move, and with the blanket covering tail and ears he has no way of reading his reactions.

“Two or three days,” G’raha rasps. His eyes are pinned to the floor as Lock prowls into his space. He doesn’t flinch when Lock lifts a hand and pushes the blanket down around his shoulders.

“You don’t have to be afraid.”

The reassurance seems to spear some tender part of him—he looks up, finally, burning with sure intensity. “I could never be afraid of you.”

Lock’s thumb grazes the curve of his cheek. “But are you afraid of yourself?”

His ears drop. “...Damn your perceptive eye.”

He comes when Lock tugs at him, face fitting neatly into the curve of Lock’s throat. Lock conjures up a purr, low and throbbing in his chest, and smiles into Raha’s hair at the soft, rasping rumble he receives in reply. “I told you. I’m here, for all of it. For whatever you need.” He strokes his back, feeling the heat of him through the blanket. “I want to do this for you.”

G’raha’s ear flicks shyly against his jaw, ticklish. “It’s not exactly how I imagined… this.”

His heart pinches painfully in his chest. “Tell me.”

“I can’t.” Finally he caves, wrapping strong arms around Lock’s waist. The blanket falls away. Underneath he is naked, skin smooth and hot, his tail bristled up with nerves and arousal. “Please don’t ask me.”

“All right.” Lock grips the back of his neck firmly, his other arm around Raha’s waist. He feels the answering shudder all through his body, through cloth and skin and bone. “Let me take care of you,” he whispers. “For as long as you need, I am yours.”

A soft, agonized sound tears out of Raha’s chest, and for a moment Lock fears he’s said the wrong thing. But then there are lips on his, hot and hungry, and he is falling, pushed down onto the bed and covered in Raha’s wiry nakedness. He grapples with narrow hips and strong thighs, doesn’t complain when his clothes are tugged and torn away. He reaches between Raha’s legs and squeezes his bollocks gently, tugging them away from his body. The skin behind is still soft and slippery with oil, and two fingers sink into that snug, perfect heat without resistance.

“Lock.” G’raha looks down at him with awe in his face, mouth plump and shiny, his hair spilling over his shoulders like a crimson halo. His eyes don’t waver as he sinks down onto Lock’s fingers. “Please.”

Whatever he’s asking for, it doesn’t matter—Lock will give it. He’ll give everything.

The First, then.

The moment he saw him again, time stopped.

He had seen him before this, of course, blurry and indistinct through the portal, then a pale shade of himself in the Ocular, a ghost summoned by the Exarch’s force of will. But those fleeting visions pale in comparison to the real thing. Lock Silvertongue, Warrior of Light, bathed in the sickly unending glow from overhead, still befuddled and vaguely aethersick but standing tall and broad-shouldered and stern as he came to the Crystarium. A hundred years. A hundred long, lonely, desperate years. From underneath his hood, the Exarch drank him in.

He was mistrustful, of course. Angry to be so unceremoniously summoned away from the field of battle, though he stifled it behind a cool facade, staring at the Exarch as if he were a stranger. And he was. The Exarch was mysterious, hooded, a crystalline chess piece moving slyly over an ever-changing board. He tried and failed to not be saddened by it. The weight of years may not have bowed his body, but his heart, hardened and petrified into undeath, still felt that aching burden, still stung to be regarded as a cruel, conniving sorcerer bent upon unknowable ends.

The Ascian complicated things. But the Exarch was nothing if not resourceful.

The pieces of the plan came together, ilm by excruciating ilm. Hope fluttered defiantly in his breast even as he watched Lock grow weaker, thin and haggard, the dark of his hair fading to long, wispy strands of silver that shocked against his deep gray skin. His honey-gold eyes grew strained and pale as butter, and he traded the lance for sword and shield, burning a flame of furious determination that threatened to devour him whole.

The Exarch had not left the Tower for many years the day he stood with them at Mt. Gulg. His control frayed more quickly than he’d expected. But there was no room for fear. With the truth of Vauthry’s nature come to light, they were forced to bring their all to bear, and he was proud to stand beside the Scions, staff in hand, channeling what dregs of the Tower’s aether remained to him.

I will do what I must. The vow echoed in his mind as he lied to Lock’s face, as he steeled himself for the final sacrifice. It would tie the ends up neatly, at the very least. The Scions would be returned to the Source, and he would fade into nothing, a thousand glittering shards to lay forever windswept over Norvrandt.

He almost wavered at the last. Power surged through him unexpectedly, the brilliant sting of Light pouring into him, and Lock looked upon his face—his true face, crisscrossed with crystal, wearing the ache of a hundred long, long years—and called him by his name. G’raha Tia. His heart seized in his chest and he wished desperately, so desperately, that he could magic this all away. That he could close the curtain on this ugly chapter and banish it to another time, another place, another plane. But he could not. He had come so far. The end was here at last. Now he could rest.

Then there was pain, hot as a poker driven into his spine. It was the first sensation of such magnitude he’d felt in an age. The shock of it ripped through him and tore his breath away. He fell. His head was swimming, falling, his crystal body slow to react so far from the source of his power.

Darkness swept over him, but not the kind he’d fought for for over a century. Sticky, slow, creeping darkness, spreading from the hole in his back, along the veins of crystal, a steadily advancing vanguard he could not hold back. The ground was rough against his cheek, a strangely distinct sensation. Then his eyes fell shut and he was gone.

The Source, now.

G’raha, trembling and fragile, can barely meet Lock’s eyes. Something had broken apart inside him when he woke to find Lock missing. Time was distorted by sleep and orgasm—he didn’t know how long he’d been alone, but it was long enough for the shared heat of their union to fade from his skin and from the sheets. The safety of his own room was a hollow comfort, but it was better than the Respite.

To find him at the door had widened the cracks he’d just begun to stitch closed. Now, as he settles low in his lap and spears himself on Lock’s erection, each breath is tight and high in his chest, and dizziness clings to him like mist. He can feel ironclad fingers digging into his hips, not setting the pace, but supporting him as he drives himself up and down, frantic, nearly feverish. His body is entirely formed to Lock’s shape, now; he pistons in and out with ease, and when G’raha leans back, braced on Lock’s thighs for leverage, the angle is perfect. Sublime.

“Gods,” Lock is saying, half-muffled beneath the sound of G’raha’s breath and the creaking mattress. He stares up at him like he’s made of gold, sunlight spun into physical form. “G’raha…”

He struggles to maintain some sense of self-awareness. His chin drops to his chest and he slows, hips jerking whenever Lock’s dick hits the right spot. “Tell me,” he gasps, “if I’m going too fast.”

“You’re perfect. Don’t stop.” Lock smears his hands up G’raha’s chest, squeezing flesh and muscle, pinching at his nipples til they’re rosy. “Take what you need.” He flashes a white, toothy grin. “I can keep up.”

G’raha groans long and loud, delighting in the freedom to be noisy. Even with the open windows, there’s enough hustle and bustle in the square down below to cover this selfish indiscretion. When his shoulders get tired he leans forward instead, bowing to smear their lips together. It’s messy and soft, sharp at the edges. Lock catches his jaw in one hand to hold him in place and sucks on his tongue.

“Lock…”

“What do you need?” He touches his cheek, the divot at the corner of his mouth. His calloused fingertips are impossibly gentle.

G'raha shuts his eyes and picks up the pace. His thighs are burning but it feels so good, raw and vigorous. He braces his hands on Lock’s chest and digs in. The muscles under skin are firm, broader since he added sword and shield to his repertoire, a little more softness to keep the energy stores burning on long marches. He squeezes, head thrown back, and barely notices when Lock spills inside him with a grunt. It doesn’t matter; his knot is back in full force, and without G'raha’s asshole tight around it, it keeps him hard.

Finally G’raha slows, legs trembling and lungs tight from exertion. He looks down, still rocking frenetically in Lock’s lap. Lock is heavy-eyed, lips swollen from being kissed and bitten, palms spread wide on G’raha’s thighs. He smiles and reaches between them, giving G’raha’s cock a bit of a fondle.

“How are you feeling?”

“Tired,” G’raha admits, though he rolls his hips into the contact readily. A strand of hair slips from its pins and sticks to the sweat sheeting his face.

Lock’s thumb pushes his foreskin back, rubs circles over his slit. The contact sends shudders down his spine, but orgasm still feels a long way off. “Let me take over,” he says gently. His thumb teases the underside, slick with precum. “You’ve worked yourself to the bone.”

G’raha shudders. He wants nothing more, but a part of him is afraid of losing his head and saying something foolish in the heat of the moment. Lock had come to him, had taken him in his arms and held him through his fear. His breast swells with affection, held close for so long and now threatening to burst free. The harder he fights it, the further away orgasm retreats. If he doesn’t do something now, Lock will know something is wrong, and he can’t have that.

“From behind,” he says, lifting off his lap at last. He fumbles down into the messy sheets beside him, burying his face in the pillow. Here, all his little secrets will be safe.

Lock says nothing, only shifts between his legs and enters him again in one swift motion. He folds himself over G’raha’s back, one elbow on the mattress, the other hand petting long, soothing strokes along his spine. His rhythm is exactly what G’raha needs, fast but not too fast, each stroke driving deep enough that G’raha sees stars. He moans loudly into the pillow, ears flicking rapidly at the sound of Lock’s harsh breaths.

“Better?” Lock croons. Lips trace a path along the nape of his neck, over his shoulder. G’raha shifts his cheek against the pillow to mumble an affirmative and is startled at the kiss Lock drops onto his cheek.

“Nngh…”

“That’s it.” Lock widens his knees, fucks into him a little faster. His fingertips turn to claws, neatly trimmed but still distinct despite their bluntness, scraping a delicious knife’s edge sensation down the middle of his spine. “Let me hear you.”

He tries not to, but a whimper squeezes out anyway. Lock praises him immediately, soft and eager, and G'raha moans full-throated into the pillow at his next thrust.

He thinks he might be able to come, if Lock keeps up this punishing pace. He’s rearranging the pieces of his mind, trying to force down the parts that won’t stop racing, when Lock smooths a broad, calloused palm down the middle of his back and wraps his hand around the base of his nail. Loose at first, near enough that his knuckles dig into the sweaty patch of skin between his tail and the cleft of his ass. He takes a breath and holds it, waiting. Then, on the next thrust in, Lock tightens his grip and pulls.

The thing that felt so far away is suddenly on top of him. It explodes out of his chest and from between his thighs, agonized cries as he spills again and again onto the sheets. He doesn’t even need a hand around his prick—it throbs, spitting out another strand of cum, as Lock pushes his knot inside with minimal effort.

“There we go,” Lock murmurs. The gentle encouragement is like a circlet of thorns around his throat. “What a good boy you are.”

G’raha sobs aloud and comes again. There’s hardly anything left, but his body doesn’t care. It convulses, squeezing mercilessly around Lock’s knot until he thinks he’s going to pop.

“You’re beautiful.” Lock kisses the back of his neck. His hand is gentle on G’raha’s tail, stroking it out of the way as he nudges just a little closer. “I’m going to lay down, okay?”

G'raha just nods, unable to form words. He whines softly as Lock tips them over onto their sides, tucked together as neatly as two spoons in a drawer. He’s too wrung out to worry about what things he may or may not have said in the heat of the moment. He doesn’t even care about the wet spot he’s left behind. His eyes fall shut and he breathes, listening to Lock’s soft moans, feeling the throb of his heartbeat between his shoulderblades.

“Raha,” Lock gasps suddenly. He takes G’raha’s thigh in a death grip and pushes hard against him. “Oh… oh… Raha…”

He can’t feel it when Lock comes, but he somehow knows anyway. He feels the way Lock convulses against him, the hot, damp breath puffed out against his neck. The knot stays hard and firmly seated, but the rest of him goes limp, one arm draped possessively over G’raha’s waist and their legs tangled together.

“You,” Lock murmurs, a beginning with no end. His hand presses firmly to G’raha’s belly, still streaked with spend. “You’re everything.”

G’raha’s eyes fly open against the pillow. Shuddery breath exhales in waves against his shoulder as Lock comes down from the high. “What?” he croaks.

“Sorry. Meant to keep that to myself.” Lock’s fingers draw patterns on his stomach, his chest. G’raha catches his hand and holds it against his chest, against the slam of his heartbeat. “Don’t run off just yet. It’ll be… unpleasant for both of us.”

He means the knot sealing them together. Instinctively, G’raha clenches around him, and is rewarded with a soft whine pressed to his hair. “Tell me?” he whispers. “Please.”

“Tell you… hmm. I suppose you deserve it.” Lock sighs, and his voice goes deep and throaty with a half-formed purr. “Promise me I won’t scare you off? Krile would never forgive me if you left the Scions.”

G'raha bites back a smile. “I’m not easy to scare.”

“Hmm. That’s true.” Lock’s forehead rests against his shoulder, so close he can feel the soft flutter of eyelashes against his skin. “This wasn’t entirely altruistic on my part. In case that wasn’t obvious.”

Twelve help him, he sounds nervous. G’raha tightens the lacing of their fingers, ducks his head to kiss Lock’s thumb where it lays over his knuckles. Lock exhales against him and starts to purr, soft and husky.

“I have… a deep admiration for you,” Lock murmurs. “And an affection that goes deeper than fondness. Deeper than friendship. I know that I have much to learn about you, about the things you endured, the man you’ve become. But if you can be patient with me, I… I would learn it all at your side.”

As if coaxed by the halting confession, he feels Lock’s knot soften and slip from his body. G'raha winces a little, tender and sticky, and rolls onto his back to face him. “Do you remember what I said to you, before the doors to the Tower closed in Mor Dhona?”

Lock’s answer is swift and sure. “You said that I would be the star by which you would chart your course.”

“And you were.” G'raha reaches up, draws the backs of his fingers along Lock’s jaw. Lock tips his head into the contact and his eyes flutter shut, shy. “Every step of the way. And it has been a long road. I am still loath to relax, for fear of waking to find it all a dream.”

“It is no dream.” Lock kisses his palm, each rosy fingertip. “I’ve been your North Star for long enough. Will you consent to being mine?”

G'raha shuts his eyes. “Yes. It would be my honor and my delight.”

The First, then.

The Tower was very far away. So far he could barely feel it. Its power was a thread inside him, no warmer than a candle flame. Beside it, the bullet hole in his back was an inferno.

“I wasn’t lying, you know,” drawled his host from somewhere off stage left. It helped him to think of it thus: as a play being enacted by others, distinct from himself and his allies. And his enemies. “You will live. I haven’t spent decades crafting a mechanical empire without learning a thing or two about aim.”

G'raha did not favor his gaoler with a response. His awareness was focused inward, fumbling to channel what little power he still had into healing.

“Ah, ah, ah.”

Snap, and the thread was broken. G'raha cried out as pain lanced down his spine. It was overwhelming to his body in this state—he screamed but he couldn’t hear himself, only feel the raw scrape of his throat in the aftermath.

“You are truly a marvel of bioengineering, Exarch. I had thought the works of the Allagans entirely lost to time… and yet here you are. Unliving proof that what is dead and gone can be resurrected, with the proper motivation.”

G'raha gritted his teeth and steadied himself, forced the pain into a small corner of his mind and folded it, folded it, pressed it deep. Ignore it. “And yet you refuse to be convinced of our strength. Our worthiness.”

“I have seen much and more of what this shattered world has to offer,” drawled Emet-Selch as he drifted into view. “You are but the tip of the very disappointing iceberg.” He leaned over G'raha where he was sprawled on the floor, curled in on himself, his cheek pillowed on unforgiving marble. “Do not look so devastated. It was a clever plan, for a sundered thing. But I was always going to be the victor.” He spreads his arms in lackadaisical triumph. “Soon enough your friend will join us, and then the true work can begin.”

G'raha shut his eyes, but he could not shut out the vision of the Warrior bathed in Light, his aether shuddering under the onslaught. He had seen the transformations too many times to pretend. Lock would convulse, skin tightening against bone, deep gray bleached to white like a corpse beneath the veil. Liquid light would drip from his eyes as he screamed, as he vomited, as his body twisted and elongated, as featherless wings tore out of his back and his armor fused to his skin like a marble carapace. His final scream of agony would be unrecognizable as human. And yet some shred of him would remain, clinging to his shattered psyche, burdening him with the memory of his old self as the hunger for aether drove him further and further into madness.

“He would have fought for you, if you let him,” G'raha whispered. The pain in his heart outweighed the pain in his spine. He could no longer feel his limbs. Tears dripped down his cheek to puddle on the floor, unremarked. “If you had just given him the chance. He could have saved you.”

Emet-Selch regarded him blankly, the way an inconsiderate child might observe a wingless insect twitching on the ground. “You still believe that. Even after witnessing his failure.”

“He is… stronger than you know.” G'raha could feel himself slipping away. Blackness pricked at the edges of his vision, and a chill crept over him, following the path of numbness as it claimed his body ilm by ilm. “I have seen it. In another time…”

Emet-Selch was saying something, but the words were strange and distorted. In the flickering instant before unconsciousness, the Ascian swept from the room and G'raha was left on the floor in the Bureau of the Architect, abandoned but not alone, a small flicker of power sputtering determinedly in his chest.

The Source, for the last time.

Morning dawns slow and golden over Mor Dhona. G’raha watches it through heavy-lidded eyes, buried under a mountain of blankets that smell fragrantly of him and Lock. His nose is cold from the crush of brisk air, but the rest of him is cozy, wrapped in Lock’s arms. The nagging fingers of his rut are barely noticeable anymore. His body has been satiated at long last, in the wee hours of the morning, and now he is entirely spent, wrung out and happy.

Behind him, Lock stirs, a rusty mumble at the nape of his neck. His nose is firm and chill where it rubs circles into the fine hairs there.

“It’s early,” G’raha whispers. His hand finds Lock’s, knitting their fingers together atop his stomach. “Go back to sleep.”

“Can’t.” Lock kisses his neck, the shell of his ear. “Gotta piss.”

G’raha buries a snort of laughter into the pillow. When Lock pulls away, the sensation is a bittersweet sting in the center of his breast, salved by the knowledge that he’ll soon return.

But instead of burrowing straight back into bed after, Lock goes to stand before the open arch of the window. He’s found a pair of smallclothes, though G’raha can’t say who they belong to, but otherwise stands completely naked looking down at the aetheryte plaza below. Dawn light catches at the edges of his limbs and shoulders like fire to a sheaf of paper.

“Exhibitionist,” G’raha murmurs.

Lock waves him off. “Hardly anyone’s awake, yet.” Still, he turns his back on the cool mist of morning and slithers back into bed, fitting himself to G’raha’s front and burrowing his cold nose into the hollow of his throat. “It’s a little late to worry about that, anyway. We had an unintentioned audience last night.”

G’raha stiffens. “What do you mean?”

“The first time we.” Lock stops, clears his throat. Adorable that he can still be embarrassed after everything they’ve done. “Thancred and Urianger were near enough to the door to get an inkling of our… activities.”

“Ah.” He relaxes again and folds his arms around Lock’s broad shoulders under the coverlet. He can barely reach all the way around at his widest point, which kindles a pleasant warmth low in his belly. “That’s all right, then. I trust them to be mature about it.”

“Only when sober,” Lock mumbles, or something like it. His hands distract G’raha from the meaning of his words as they stroke a path down his spine to his tail. The ember in his belly sparks awake as Lock strokes that sensitive point just at the small of his back, remembering the firm grip of his hand, the short, sharp tug that broke him apart. He shudders and squirms closer. His hip fits neatly between Lock’s thighs, rubbing against a burgeoning erection.

“Again?” Incredulous, but not displeased, Lock sniffs at the crook of G’raha’s neck. “I thought you were finished.”

I’ll never be satisfied, G’raha thinks, and for the first time in a long time it isn’t a desperate knife’s-edge in his craw. “I am,” he says, reaching between them. He grabs for the meat of Lock’s thigh and grinds against it, teasing the wet, blunt head of his prick beneath his smalls. “Shall I stop?”

Lock’s eyes glow at him in the early dawn, wide and moon-pale and knowing, and the ember bursts into flame.