#draconecastle

[draconecastle]

Her Choice

WARNING: A whiff of spice? A little spicy...

Reply to No Stranger by @mirastarsorrow

Manus rose from the chair next to her bath and his clothes dissolved like mist. His body was elven but it moved from another world. There was no more beautiful flesh than his and it only added to the otherness of his presence before Mira. Still, his nudity did not seem explicit. As he walked into the tub the ceramic gently changed shape around her to accommodate him. Flowers burst on the surface to blanket modesty even though his hands slid up her thighs like they were long lost lovers. He faced her intimately, knowing his magic was already sending waves of small pleasure through her bones. Her lower lip trembled, eyes wide but she did not flinch. His thumbs gently massaged the indent of her inner thighs as his long black hair dipped into the water and wiggled like lost ink towards her. In his eyes were the universe. They reflected everything Mira loved and she had to blink to focus that they were just an illusion. The sound of small bells in the distance made her ears feel sweet.

"Have you ever kept reaching for something not knowing what it was? When all else defies this nameless faith? When it cannot be logic nor belief? Belief requires a destination. One I have searched and created worlds for. But none tell me why."

Manus pulled her into his lap and she gently floated to him, straddling as a lover. His dark shadow lowered to her shoulder to bless skin with kisses. Mira gasped for breath feeling the impossible ecstasy of his hands sliding over the curves of her back.

"Perhaps this makes me a bit of a cunt."

Manus knew Mira's lost face couldn't completely follow his vague abstract. His problem was so external sewn into him it was hard to articulate in mortal terms.

"My dinners are an extension of that." he said with a smirk of confession, pulling back to grin at her. He admired her mortal beauty and pet her hair back from her face with all his attention. Her tears flowed freely without willing them to.

"Your future will always be beautiful, Mira. I have seen it."

His eyes held hers without release. "It's because you are in it. Someday you will know this. That everyone you touch…" his hand found hers and kissed her fingertips gently. "Everyone you love only adds to your beauty. Even after they leave you with only tears to mark their passing." He placed her hand over his heart and cupped her cheek with his ancient hand, holding her. "I could tell you your future. If love blooms to a garden of peace. I could give you the power to know this. Or you can kiss me and I can be your friend. I cannot be both. Do you understand?"

The bells sang a sad song around her with dust that sparkled with heavy magic. His eyes rested on her lips, waiting for her to speak her answer.

@daily-writing-challenge

[draconecastle]

Graphite/charcoal sketch of Manus... been some time since I sketched thought I'd haul out the supplies... used Lee Pace as ref.

[draconecastle]

Photo by A.J. Pierce

A Trapped Love

Reply to Nightingale by @mirastarsorrow

Mira’s question tore through the haze of pleasure Manus had dived into to drown his true nature. Their bodies moved perfectly in sync but something about this felt different. 

He had been many things as a Dreamer. Everything he created he became to understand. Knowing first was always the wise precaution before blooming changes to remove pain and flourish harmony. Suffering and wonder were flavors served on the same plate but the more he indulged, the farther he felt from expression. How could he communicate this terror and beauty to a mortal mind? 

Once he had become a tiny beetle with singular purpose. The need was simple this way. Survival felt like control, until a raindrop struck his jeweled body and he found himself on his back, stuck inside the orderly bubble that imprisoned him. While his beetle brain pondered the predicament, his true self waited in horror observing the gentle sun reflect the forest concave in his raindrop prison. It refracted and danced so beautifully he forgot his insect body was dying. The consequence for the beetle was doom but his presence was never in danger. When life slipped away he became the raindrop and let himself become undone by the sun’s warmth, releasing the dead thing he now wasn’t. On his ascension to the sky as a million water molecules he poured himself into the sun, feeling the violent vibrance of infinite energy break his mind. 

He was a creator but his mortal seed was that of an observer, endlessly curious and bound by desire. Thousands of times he had fallen in love over the stretching centuries. Love was always pursued to answer the question of his original betrayal. He could create anything but this had to cultivate outside of him or it never felt like an answer. 

Perhaps there was a wickedness inside him that would always wonder if this is what he deserved. His creations denied him love naturally because that’s what he needed to understand to create harmony. There had to be a point, or it was all chaos and horror. 

Every time Manus loved, he was never known. Lovers made assumptions that satisfied their vision of him and this was enough. It was too difficult to know Manus. Would Mira be the same?

WARNING: Tasteful smut ahead?

Manus felt her convulse over him with quivering flutters as her body spasmed beautifully. He never wished more to be free and this startled him. Lost under the heat of their coupling, his teeth clenched with need, wanting more. Only a mortal body would be able. How was she the first to realize this about him? His heart jumped at her correct guess. Her compassion shattered restraint and this aroused him fiercely. 

He took her with a surge of his body, driving into her flesh to let sensation eclipse this pain. Her hair cascaded messily in the moss as he moved her passionately to her back, allowing him to pound pleasure into all their triggers. His face twisted and gasped, lips parted contorted in helpless need. The release he wanted would only be a dream this way but her question made it so erotic the delicious sense of losing himself made him believe, if only for a moment. 

At first he answered by devouring her question with his mouth, as if he could swallow her soul. His tongue fought against her gasping breath as she returned it with eagerness. Hands grasped and seized flesh, gripping fingers greedily taking like she was already his. Her bouncing breasts tempted enough to claim these too, lavishing them with wet kisses she moaned against until he felt the telltale squeeze and flutter explode from her again. He thought desire could be filled this way until her tears connected to the unfelt parts of him no one had touched. He had been a fool. This thrilled him and his eyes opened wider, pausing through pants to kiss them off her cheeks, closing his eyes to the sweetness through the salt. 

“Beautiful Mira…" he purred against her cheek. Thankful and warm. He heard the Nightingale. All the perfect details she added that were not his doing. He was pulling something from her already. Did she not see her own magic? He marveled at this with breathless amazement. His conjured heart beat uncontrollably. “You’re already doing it. No one has ever asked me that. Give me what I cannot create." He pulled back to look in her eyes and the first glimmer of his mortal soul reached out to hers. A single vulnerable tear splashed to her neck and rolled down her skin. "Because I do not know why." he confessed. "Enduring this existence alone brings no answers."

@daily-writing-challenge

[draconecastle]

Igniting Belief

Reply to Brief by @mirastarsorrow

Manus gave gifts to reveal the truth of mortal desires. This could have been seen as love or tests or mirrors to self-reflect, except it never was. When the mountain of desire was climbed and the goal achieved, mortals always felt the pang of disappointment. Some more than others. Having was never as pleasurable as wanting. Belief was more powerful than knowing. Mira grieved for her own love because her belief never compared to reality. This would forever sour any pleasure given or taken and no mortal, not even a god could fill it. Only she could.

He could relate to this mortal tragedy too well. The greed of belief which would deny all satisfaction for the moment. The timeless space his mind stretched into from becoming a Dreamer forced him to see his beliefs as monsters that fed off time, munching their way to singular purposes. He loved these monsters within him. Monsters that refused to settle for anything less than perfect love. Ones that pulled him back from changing his goals to any that didn’t leave his heart open and raw from wanting. They were cruel even as they were innocent and good. While mortals resented their own beliefs for the pain, Manus learned to love pain because he loved his wounds, especially those he did not understand. Belief was the only altar he kneeled to so he understood Mira’s worship of the same. 

WARNING: Spicy sexual acts mentioned.

Feeling was not the same as an extension of his manifestations. His body was conjured and the awareness of pleasure was not as focused as it would be in a true mortal body. A genius could paint a scene that moves the heart but only stepping into it really felt like knowing. This barrier only drove his desire to be free and Manus wondered if Mira knew this about him.

Her questions were dangerous and bold. They invited his desires to pour and take everything she could give. Oh, how large her heart must be to open this way. Hungry for the pain of others to fill it. Manus might even come close. But this was no kindness either. It was temporary relief. And like all wicked or foolish things, the mortal beliefs in him welcomed the mimickry. 

When she touched him this way he felt the warm language of intimacy spoken with words he dare not say. Coaxing flesh to control his desires released his mind’s hold on it, for now. He guessed her needs would be similar and found her answer comforting to what he already knew. Manus opened his eyes wider, the stars in his dark pupils dilating to open possibilities. His lips parted from pleasure, pleased in her skills and soft beauty. 

“Knowing a future bright or dim is never a kindness…” he said a little devilishly, letting his breath tighten with her grip over his mortal extension. Her fingers touched him like she was squeezing his heart and an involuntary moan filled his mouth before he could speak again.

“I do need this. But as your friend… I will only take it if you want the same, Mira.” 

The desire seen in her reddened cheeks and caressing touch told him the answer but he wanted her to hear her speak of the place he was pulling them both into. He could not fill her without being wanted. His kind of love was crushing and vast, too dangerous for placation. 

His hands spread open to seize the smooth cheeks of her rear under his pressing grip and he pulled her closer to his sex she was stroking. In turn he released a hand to slide along her body, two fingers finding her trigger easily but not direct. He pet her stiffening button with a knowing grin, liking how her pleasing faltered with a pause of her hand as he recalibrated her mind with the jolting precision. 

There was no rush of destination, no pull of time as the tinkling of magic chorused around them. The water would always stay warm, the destination of their pleasure ending never the point. In a moment he would dissolve the bath and replace it with a grove in a forest no mortal eyes had ever seen. A place from a world birthed from his mind Mira exclusively would be allowed to enter. The moss here was sapphire blue and thick with the fresh scent of being alive. Cushioned to be crushed by their bones and tense thrusts. Small sacrifices to the primal bonding he felt flaring gold between them. No pillows or silk sheets would muffle this heat. He wanted the dirt and bruises to let it feel real. To make the union of their bodies their only belief.

Manus leaned in and kissed up her neck, trailing along her jaw and whispered as she asked, the vibrations of his words rubbing her lips before he pressed them open and offered the kiss of gods, before he poured into her what would destroy lesser hearts. 

“Make me feel free… with all the love you want to have.” 

@daily-writing-challenge

[draconecastle]

I've been working on this illustration during the daily writing challenge, but I've been enjoying the writing from others! Here's some graphite art and the poem I wrote. It came from a story with @lillandyrshadowglade, here: Broken Worlds in a Bottle. Fits Day 3's 'Crush'.

Old Magic

Time is my tragedy Not the beautiful wither of leaf on bone but the aching forever that always existed

Until you used words like a noose prose like a poltergeist on all the worlds I made for you

There is no refuge, no solace in any universe, in any drop of water unless they are your tears on my skin burning their place to my paradise

Relentlessly, I will seek you As the grouse beats faster than the heart I too will pound into existence a new balance dangled with that chain you have always been pulling

You seek no savior, you seek self in me The peace in knowing every grain of sand, every star I have seen them all, I have played every possibility and none exist without you, the conception or the crush When flesh finally meets, all will be dust

@daily-writing-challenge

[draconecastle]

Oil painting by Josh Tiessen

Such Precision

Reply to The Veil by @mirastarsorrow

To shake the cosmos with a whisper, to land perfectly on the infinite with such precision revealed Mira's kind of rare magic. A butterfly in a battlefield of bad dreams with gods and monsters. In witness of her empathetic grace Manus felt parts of him breaking apart. The missing piece never seen because he had to wait for her to find him. She wasn't part of his plan, as something to fit inside. As the ice submits to melt in the sun, Manus realized with existential thrill he had no choice. She was a fountain of everything he had been seeking it frightened him with the shock of it. How deeply his soul was touched. Seven-thousand years of preparation and seeking then someone finally saw him where he wasn't looking. It was absurd and also exactly how cosmic jokes worked. To be clutched by mercy he could never make.

The beautiful visage of him lost all time but the kind in front of him, with her. Manus forgot to breathe in his conjured body as she spoke. The pearl he knew well. No one loved like Manus because his heavy affections were carried across the tethers of time. It settled into his soul, needy to grow. Every lover was a marbled layer over the one before. Patching and coating and ever requiring the accommodation of a larger heart as the wound never stopped bleeding. He didn't want Mira to be another layer. As he gazed into her beautiful elven eyes feeling enchanted, a vision of her crushing and smashing his pearl cleared his mind of all doubt.

His conjured body settled, heavily connected to her in every sense as if he needed to be as close as possible to every beat of her heart. The voice that hummed rich in her ears was so full of appreciation it sounded rough and broken from being touched.

"I have asked myself that many times. Perhaps the pursuit is the distraction from that question."

Manus gave Mira an amused, small smile of concession.

"I have consumed every recorded thought life may give over centuries but not that exact story."

As if giving thanks, Manus wrapped his arms around her closer and placed a kiss along her jaw, trailing down her neck for every word that moved him.

"Thank you, Mira."

He breathed in her skin, wishing his body was real with aching selfishness. The needy, ancient dragon that simmered under his surface suffered with overwhelming obsession on this thought. The urge to feel Mira as a mortal being made him want to growl lowly and fight any fate that defied him.

Mira gasped with pleasure, arching against him as he unknowingly poured his possessive desire into her mind. His mouth opened hotly, teeth bared against her throat with no threat to her, but anything else that got in his way.

"Dream with me, Mira Starsorrow. I'm writing a new ending. And you're now in it."

@daily-writing-challenge