The archer stays in the back of the party. She fights as long-range support – and as much as she wishes she could do more for her love than catch the haunch of some foe bearing down on him, he has trained for years and honed his skills to become one of the king's most feared soldiers (and now, his undoing). She has some hobby training and her beloved's reluctant agreement to let her come along, but she isn't a fighter the way he is.
Or his rival, her love's match in everything but swords (he's always preferred polearms). Or the young mage, with her mystic training on lost rituals in a foreign land, or the roughhousing bruiser with his quest to avenge his family's defeat. It galls, to be overtaken and outstripped by such youths, but the archer can't deny that it's scrupulously fair.
And it's hot down here, under the earth, amongst this subterranean lava flow. She's long since stopped asking her love and his rival if they feel heat or cold, since she first started attending court and the two of them were squires, unearthly unaffected by night's chill or midday sun no matter when they stood their watches. The mage has a sort of personalized airflow she's apologized can't be extended to anyone else, and the bruiser... well, either it's special training or he's simply too stubborn to let the heat bother him. But the archer gave herself heatstroke chasing her love through the desert (which she stands by, though she'll admit it could have been better planned), and her weapons are made of wood and cost extra to replenish besides.
So the archer stays in the back. Surrounded – her love with the gorgeous face he's started exposing more often on one side, his rival's lean serpentine grace on the other, and the petite mage with her darting lightning-clad rapier at her flank. Protected, from the bruiser's lecherous gaze and any monsters besides. In prime position to pray, and pray, and pray for godly intervention in the form of healing.
(That healing doesn't go as far as it used to: thin tingles where she once drew down columns of restorative light, barely enough to knit the skin on shallow scrapes now. Somewhere, she wonders if the gods are as bored of her prayer as she is.)
Sweat runs down the inside of her dress. Beads down the stroke of her sternum; rounds the curve of her slim handful of breast.
There's nothing to wipe it away with. Even if there were, she refuses to make herself any more obviously the weak link – the mage hasn't stopped to sop the small of her back with her gauzy spidersilk dress, and even the bruiser's fur pauldron has remained stubbornly affixed, so the archer and her sweaty body will have to press on.
...Mm, sweaty bodies, though. Her eyes follow her love, the strain of his hindquarters practically visible through his daringly declarative new outfit as he spears the giant thorax of a butterfly. White's a good color on him, she thinks. Certainly better than the angsty indigo-black he wore at the castle, too weighted by the sins he committed as the king's arm each night to consummate their betrothal – this makes him look soft. Floaty. Feminine, almost, in a way she's discovering she quite likes – not to mention how it hugs the curves underneath where it's been dampened.
And his rival... Her eyes stray to him now, searching futilely to find his eyes under his helmet. Where her love strides slowly but inexorably into masses of foes, felling corpses with each press but never straying from herself or the mage he swore fealty to, his rival leaps spritely between the largest of the targets her love leaves over, gruesome spear plunging in point-first before bounding straight up and then down again on the next survivor. He's ruthless in a way her love has never managed, brutal honed efficiency versus elegant space-clearing strokes, and she'd be lying if she said the sight of the two of them sparring never caught her breath. And he's been wearing the helmet so long, she'd lost track of how his face had changed, but –
But he'd kidnapped her. To get her love to cooperate, he'd said, he and that bulky suit of armor that had eaten up the kingdom – but the other suit hadn't lingered by her cage the way her old friend had. Hadn't taken the helmet off to stare hungrily at her, snarling under his breath like a roused dog before falling forward (she too stunned to resist) and plundering a kiss from her, tongue and teeth and maybe more before he ripped his lips away with her love's name on them.
The spear plunges in, and in, and in.
The archer watches him thrust. Wonders what his thrusts would feel like – what they would look like, delving into any of their little party. Would the little mage squeal and rub herself? Would the bruiser grimly allow it, only just putting up with the indignity for the sake of seniority, or would he growl and try to turn the tables? Would her love contest the right? Or would he just mewl and take it, so weak for any of his loved ones, his kingdom-wide soft spot for his rival widely known?
Has he ever thought of it? Alone, in dark hours? Explored himself to it, maybe, gaining some familiarity of sensation in exchange for sweetly secret lingering desire? Or have those depths of his remained untouched, a gift for his rival to despoil?
Oh. Oh, it's so hot down here. Her whole body is wet and panting –
And. And, oh. She's... been distracted, in her prayer. Has invited the wrong thing upon herself, she thinks, chest heaving as her dress hem whispers distantly somewhere, passing over her ears. She's all alight, a torch burning for somewhere else to pass the flame; someone, anybody, any body, please, she's so wet.
She falls into a pair of arms, then a liplock, barely registering firm muscle-flex against her as she moans and grinds into the kiss, her partner just as overcome; then she's spun and claimed by another insistent mouth, and again, until she's become an epicenter of writhing, lust-drunk bodies. How did–? Was her desire just that strong?
Oh, she realizes. Oh, Bless affects the whole party. And when she manages to string her thoughts together over the enthusiastic slurping, it's true – she can just see the wash of pink hearts, dizzy circles dancing around the others' heads as they moan and fall into each other. But oh, oh, that's their old friend's hands on her beloved's shoulders – she hadn't realized her love was so much broader, but he's easily and rapturously conceding to be directed as their friend will nonetheless, and the other half of the party is frantically rubbing each other off, and it's just such a lovely set of pictures she almost whines when two weapon-strong men wrap themselves each around one of her sides, her love guiding her chin to face him for another liplock even as his rival edges his prick into her quim. But it's all just love and lust and the perfumed fog of sorcellous desperation, and soon she's too busy happily choking on it, eyes blissfully rolled back, to know or care about the train of thought.
