12. Aegir
Chapter twelve
Aegir
IN WHICH AEGIR TRANSLATES HIS NICKNAME FOR ELSPETH… MOSTLY
“ F or example, if you ordered it, I would dance on the bed.” He waggled his eyebrows and ducked past her, crawling onto the bed to stand. He raised each shoulder in concert, pursing his lips as he brought his hips into it, shaking from side to side.
Elspeth squealed and clapped her hand over her mouth and Aegir decided that this was a grand idea. Her cheeks pinkened and her eyes squeezed shut in laughter.
“Get down from there, are you daft?”
“I can’t, I must dance for my lady’s amusement!”
Elspeth’s giggles fueled something within him, driving him to more outrageous moves, to sillier faces. He waved his arms about, switching to smoother, more graceful movements, as if he were a dancer at the ballet.
“I’m not your lady, aren’t I your mate?” she called up at him, shaking her head.
“Ah, yes, you’re so right! All the more reason then!”
Elspeth reached for him, presumably to stop him, but he danced away to the other side of the bed. It wasn’t large by any means, but it was big enough that he was out of reach.
With the most adorable scrunched up face of fake anger, she crawled onto the bed after him. For a brief moment, he stopped, arrested by the sight of her on her knees before him. She tugged at his pants, telling him to get down, but his mind was overwhelmed with her.
Instead of the shy smiles she’d been giving him, her grin spread across her whole face revealing dagger sharp canines. Was this actually working? He’d meant to cheer her up, and obviously it was working for that, but was this working as a method of seduction? Who’d ever thought making a fool of oneself would serve to make someone want you?
Elspeth squealed, grasping at him harder, and it was no hardship to let her pull him down onto the bed, though he pushed out his bottom lip.
“You ruined my dance! ”
“Oh I’m so sorry.” She giggled her way through her faux apology, though it trailed off and her eyes widened. Her eyes roamed his face, so wide and deep he thought he could fall in and swim forever in their depths.
The air thickened between them. They lay stretched out beside one another, and the shoulder of Elspeth's chemise had dipped down to reveal a tantalizing expanse of shoulder. He'd seen her completely naked, but as any shifter would tell you, there was an etiquette with shifting and nakedness, and it had been ingrained in him. One didn't ogle people when they were naked before or after a shift.
Laid out on a bed though? Spread before him like the most tempting feast he'd ever seen? He did more than ogle. Aegir drank in the sight of her. Gulped her down with heaving breaths tinged with her sultry scent. The warmth of the gas lamps wavered and flickered, playing patterns across her skin and the paleness of her chemise. The sun had set only recently, plunging the world outside their window in a haze of purple. It surrounded her head, peeking through strands of her hair when Elspeth tilted her head to the side.
"What's on your mind?" he asked, eyes focusing on how her lips pursed.
"It's just, we've found ourselves in this very odd situation, and we don't really know much about one another..."
Ah, so they were talking. Mentally, he willed his cock to relax, tapping his lunula to pull blood to other areas. He couldn't help his attraction to her, but he could help the annoying visual indicators of it.
"True, it's all been quite rushed, hasn't it?"
"Yes, and I don't even know... well, anything!" She sat up, sitting cross legged with elbows propped on her knees. "Like, where are you from, really? Do you have a family? What is your job? Where is your boat and Jokith?"
"Not keen on letting me actually answer anything?" he teased. He sat up to better meet her eyes, instead planting one foot on the mattress so he could rest an elbow atop it, his hand flat against the side of his head. "Let's see... I am from somewhere even farther north than you, which is really all I can say. I'll take you if—well if this turns out to be permanent. As for a family, I've quite a large one, actually. I'm the middle child of seven, all sisters other than me."
Mentioning his family made his heart pinch in his chest. He missed them, he always did. His oldest sister, Arina, would be popping out a pup any day now, and he'd wanted to try to hurry home to be there for her, though that seemed unlikely to happen now.
"So many of you!" she exclaimed.
"Oh, aye. My mum's shifted form is a rabbit, and my dad's a wolf, so I think breeding was one of their favorite pastimes."
"They have different forms than you do? How does that work?" Her eyes sparkled when she was curious. It might not be sex, but in so many ways, seeing her like this was better.
"Well, we choose our forms. So, we're born with the ability, but not the skill. We have to learn to shift, and we all pick what animal we want during puberty."
"How remarkably... unique," she said, voice hushed. "So you study an animal and eventually you can just, poof, shift into it? Do they all shift like you, to other humanoids and such?"
"Heh, no." Aegir flopped back onto the bed, hoping she'd not notice how his cheeks colored. "I just have a knack for it, I suppose, which leads me to your next question. I'm here to find what we can about the Empire. Looking for chinks in their armor we can exploit. I'm here to gather information, and eventually we hope to do what we can to defeat them.”
“I see,” she said. “Well it's certainly a worthy endeavor. That was quite the succinct summary, and still I feel as if I know so little about you.”
“Well, that's the thing about me. I'm an enigma. But what about you, little seal? What should I know about you?”
“There's nothing to know about me, really. Beyond what you know already, I suppose. I have a mother and a brother, my father died. I enjoy drawing and I used to take care of the sick and elderly in my village. I can turn into a seal, and live on a remote island where until recently we'd been left largely alone by the Empire.” She shrugged her shoulders.
Immediately, Aegir understood what she meant. He knew more about her, but almost nothing of consequence. Her family certainly mattered a great deal, but as he thought on it, he realized he'd rather know things like what her skin looked like in the early morning light, or what she enjoyed eating. He'd love to know what her laugh sounded like in the dark, or what faces she made when she drew. He didn't want simple platitudes or facts one might as well find in a book. He wanted the intimate parts of her, the knowledge that one only gained over time spent in company.
“What do you draw? Other than doodles of me on my papers, that is. ”
“Landscapes, mostly. It helped that I knew my island so well.”
"So I'm special then?" he asked. He knew the grin on his face would likely come off as cocky, but he was anything but. Instead, the feeling that accompanied it, that coursed through his body, was gratitude.
“I should hope so. It’s not like I’ll ever be bonded to anyone else.” She smiled sweetly, and she carved into his heart. Oh, yes, the bond, his feelings were more intense than any he’d ever experienced, and it always seemed to come back to the bond.
“The way I see it, that doesn’t make me special at all. Anyone could’ve bled on your pelt.”
She frowned, perhaps that didn’t sit right with her either and hope swelled within him.
“I’m not sure that’s how it works.” She pursed her lips and frowned. “It’s quite frustrating, isn’t it. Not knowing which are your own feelings and which are magically created.”
Lovely, now he’d made the situation even worse. The last thing he wanted was for her to be upset. She’d gone through so much, and that was just what he expressly knew about. Who knew what all she had gone through before he met her.
The frown deepened as did the lines on her forehead, and Elspeth began chewing her lip.
“Why don’t we talk about something happy?” he asked. “Maybe you could tell me about what you’d like to do after all this is over.”
Elspeth opened and closed her mouth several times before cocking her head to the side. “You know, I’ve never much thought about what I wanted my life to look like. So much of it has been reactionary. I fished with my father, and then he was gone, so I helped my mother. That grew into helping everyone on my island. Helping everyone on the island grew into helping out at the temple. I always figured I would just continue on that way until something else happened to me…”
She huddled into herself, pulling her legs up so she was in a ball. “I suppose that sounds pathetic to someone like you. Hell, you make your own luck, determine your own life. Whereas I might as well be a strand of kelp, planted firmly in the seafloor, and moved about by the tide.”
“Actually,” he said. “It’s more common than you’d realize. The Empire purposely makes it so that there is little mobility between communities. That there is little opportunity for advancement. I don’t think it’s pathetic at all, though it does make me angry on your behalf.”
Leaning forward, he traced the backs of his fingers along her cheek. “What if you took a moment to dream? What do you think you might want if you could choose for yourself?”
Those deep gray eyes met his, pulling him in. She gave a nod, and was quiet as she thought. She caught his hand with her own and held it gently, tracing the lines of his palms and of old worn scars. As if she had no idea she was doing it, Elspeth began humming. Every drag of her delicate fingers shot fire through his veins. Each small tickling touch dragged him deeper under her spell. It would be easy to dismiss it—perhaps it would even be logical. Since she hadn’t actually opened her mouth to sing, he doubted that his mesmerization was a result of her voice. No, it was just her.
As she traced his hands, staring intently down at them, he caressed each of her skin markings with his eyes, determined that if he looked long enough, he could memorize their pattern, perhaps even trace them in his sleep. He didn’t spend a good deal of time in his human form, and so those markings on her skin called to him, echoing with his own predilection to his orca form.
“I think," Elspeth whispered. "That perhaps I’d like to travel if I had the opportunity. I know my island, forwards and backwards, as well as anyone can know a place. But even just this has shown me how many different things there are to see in the world, how many different people there might be."
“Well, there’s quite the start! Travel is a grand idea, though I admit, I might be biased. And is there anything else you’d like to do?”
“Part of the reason that I want to travel, honestly, is to draw new places. For example, there is a waterfall on Hillskerry, I think I’ve drawn it in every season, every time of day, from every angle I could possibly think of. I love those drawings, but I’d love to have a new waterfall to draw. You said that Berggeheimnis is in the mountains, but I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve only ever seen mountains from a distance. What does a mountain look like up close? Is it a bunch of tiny rocks? Or one large one? Will there be small details that I’ll be able to capture forever on the page?”
Her face held a faraway look, and her words pulled him into the magic of her dream. He could just imagine it, and as soon as she spoke of mountains, he was overcome with bubbling anticipation. He’d be the one to witness her reaction upon seeing her first mountain. He’d be the one to introduce her. As he thought of the path of their journey, he mentally noted different places they could visit. And after, he could think of more that he wanted to show her. What would she think of Sanctuary? The stark cliffs, and the glowing blue caves of his youth. Abruptly, it struck him that after the end of their journey, even if she were able to travel, there was no guarantee he would be there with her. Truly, there might not be any reason for him to be at all.
And he was surprised to find that he wanted to be. He wanted to be the one to show her new things, take her places that would ignite her imagination and make her fingers itch to draw them.
“What about you? What will you do after all this is done?” She asked, voice suddenly soft.
The question caught him by surprise. He hadn’t thought about what came next in years. His job and current life were what he had strived for. For a long time, he thought that he was at the end of his goals. He had reached the position he wanted, had the life that he had set out to get, and then all there was to do was continue.
He could hardly complain about an exciting job that gave him plenty of excuses for liaisons. Aegir was captain of a ship, an integral part of not only Sanctuary’s information network, but also of the resistance. He was one of the few people that got to travel the world rather than being relegated to one continent. And yet...
And yet.
And yet, over the last few days, he'd tasted something more. He had tasted what it would be like if he weren’t alone. He’d tasted the feeling of being wanted—perhaps, even for himself. So much of the time who he was depended on the company he was in, but more and more he found himself slipping up with Elspeth. Even his persona in the dining room had been closer to who he truly was than he usually allowed to show.
“Honestly, I’m not sure. More of the same, I suppose. I’m due for a trip back home, and I imagine my superiors would want to know about the recent changes in the Empire.
“Recent changes? You mean me and Feann?”
“Yes, but there’s more than that. At first, Jokith and I thought we were just noticing isolated changes. Nothing too big, the Empire enforcing laws that they had largely ignored for years, reestablishing a presence in cities otherwise forgotten. Over time, though, a pattern emerged. We aren’t sure why they’re doing all of this, but they seem to be consolidating and re-solidifying their power. It’s concerning, because the resistance hasn’t actually made any large changes. Nor have they done anything outwardly aggressive—well other than a small incident the day I met you, but that's recent. We are still in the 'gather information and support' stages at this point." He closed and opened his hand looking at the fingers.
“It does sound very exciting and useful." Elspeth said, “I would love to have a job that was so important. The way I see it, there’s nothing wrong with having such an important position and allowing it to be fulfilling."
“It consumes me. Never gives me a moment's rest."
“Well, that can’t be all you do. I’m sure there’s plenty of times that you’re just traveling between places. You must have a hobby?”
“So much interrogation, am I to be on trial?”
“No,” she said, looking away. “It’s only that I want to get to know my mate.”
Mate.
Why did that hit harder than husband or wife? Why did her calling him her mate cut straight through?
His voice was rough when he spoke. “I read." The words seemed ripped from his throat. Why had he told her that?
You’re supposed to be in persona, fool. Get back into character. Then again, it was just reading. How could reading be any more personal than he’d already been?
“You did have a great many books in your room."
"In some ways, I also read for work. Because my reading is where I find new characters to add to my arsenal. I’m frankly not smart enough to come up with a new character. I often need them quickly and already fleshed out for my purposes. So instead, I collect them. Like a cast of characters that I switch out as needed. Sometimes I’ll combine them, if I don’t have someone who is just right."
"And you obviously speak languages I don’t, because I could only read half of the titles." She blushed again. “Well, that, and the fact that the note was transcribed into that other language."
“I speak several actually. It comes in handy in my line of work.”
“I imagine so..." the last vowel was drawn out as she yawned. "Is that why you call me murúch? That’s in another language too?"
“Yes, I hadn’t realized I was not translating it. It means siren.” He failed to translate the possessive. He couldn’t say that it actually meant my siren. It felt too much. Too close. She’d already cut him open, it wouldn't do him no good to admit to just how much.
“Siren, because of what happens when I sing?” Her eyes were drooping and no, he wouldn’t say it, because of how the word had affected her, but she looked so achingly beautiful like that. Her eyelashes shrouded all of her eyes, granting him freedom to appreciate her freckles. They were normally overshadowed by the way her eyes captivated him.
“Yes, because of your singing. And I suppose, because of how tightly you’ve bound me. This bond isn't only affecting you. I am well and truly caught, little siren."
What shapes could he make with those freckles, what patterns could he see? What futures could he divine if only he could make the right connections? Here, a lone freckle in an expanse of creamy skin might portent one thing. A freckle intersecting the faint circle of a ring on her pelt might mean another.
There was no way to know how long he studied them, surely long enough for her breathing to steady, and her eyes to drift shut, and longer still as he lost himself in the constellations on her face. He was a sailor, intimately acquainted with the stars, but perhaps, a new sky was over shadowing them.
F or the first time in more years than he could count, Aegir woke up slowly. There was no instant alertness, no wave of caution at being in enemy territory. What was even better was the rush of sensations. The warm scent of Elspeth, the lush softness of her body pressed against his, the long brown hair that trailed across his face, quivering with each of his breaths.
It wasn’t as if he was relaxed, he was taut as a bow string, hyper aware of every place she pressed against him, and the way that her curves squished around to accommodate him. Shifting and spilling so that he might be closer to burrowing inside of her. Where his arms wrapped around her stomach, they pressed in.
Where the roundness of her ass pressed against him, she swelled to envelop his cock. Snorting in her sleep, she had no idea, and he couldn't pursue his desire, but it was hard not to think—not to see meaning in it .
Was her body reaching for him, enveloping him, sucking him in to play the way she'd been afraid of yesterday? Was it voicing what she couldn’t?
Or was it nothing more than simple comfort? Was he only just warm? Was it only nice to be held? Eventually, he decided it didn’t matter. He’d enjoy the moment, willingly embark on the course she'd charted for them, or perhaps they had discovered it together, in their sleep.
Then again, it might be that infernal bond that was so confusing, and how it toyed with them. He hated how strong his feelings were, hated them, because they felt so real. For so long, everything had been fabricated, and his feelings mocked him, tricking even him with their carefully crafted authenticity. They felt real, and so he hated them, even as he allowed himself to drown in them. Because even if they weren’t, perhaps this was the closest he would ever get.
Last night, he'd been worried that he was allowing too much of himself to slip into his character, but perhaps it was good, perhaps he just needed to reshape who he was around her to allow for that. In his years of work, if he learned anything, it was that almost no one was as real or authentic as they would have you believe. Almost everyone held parts of themself back for fear of rejection. So, even if it was for a short time, he saw in that moment that they’d also been granted something beautiful; they’d received a gift along with their curse, caught a glimpse at a love otherwise only found in stories.
He'd read plenty of love stories. After all, what better way to woo a partner than to read what they wanted in a book. All he'd needed to do, most of the time, was determine what book would fit for the person he needed to seduce, and then embody their love interest, following it like an instruction manual. With Elspeth, though, none of the characters, the scenarios, the manuals seemed to fit. She was something entirely new, and while he should be panicking, he realized that for once he didn’t need the manual. Because he could just be himself—which scared him deeper than any danger he’d ever faced.
The sun was still low in the sky, the beams of the early morning sun painting highlights across her face when she began to stir. She stretched against him, relieving pressure, only to inspire new contact in other areas—had he ever enjoyed the feeling of someone’s calf before? Likely not, but the smoothness of her skin as it brushed against his, the short downy hairs that tickled his own legs, was perfection.
And as she woke up, he felt her realization as their bodies impacted and interacted. For a moment she stiffened upon feeling his own stiffness, but almost immediately, he could feel her begin to melt. Tension dripped from her slowly, yes, but it drained all the same, so that within minutes, she was relaxed and pliant in his arms. The pattern, the releasing, was echoed in her face, eyebrows raising and relaxing, only to raise slowly again, pulling the corners of her mouth up with them.
With the smallest movement, so infinitesimal as to perhaps be an accident, she pressed back against him. He might have brushed it off as nothing more than that, but then it moved slowly to the side, her lush ass dragging sensuously along where he swelled in his pants. Aegir bit his lip, clamping down on the sudden urge to buck his hips into her, and allowed her exploration. She needed this, he realized, she needed the freedom to explore, to reclaim what he was increasingly certain had been taken from her.
Instead, he allowed himself the luxury of humming in her ear, knowing she would feel the vibration echo through his chest and with it, he told her 'yes, please.' Elspeth stilled and released a little gasp, the telltale pinkness of a blush returning to her cheeks. Though she was embarrassed, she was still brave. It was no longer than a minute before she resumed her testing, pressing back so that once again, his shaft sank between her cheeks. On, and on, she teased him, the drugging scent of her arousal building in between them, tantalizing and torturing him with the fullness of the experience. The scent of her was so thick he could taste it, hinting at what she would be like on his tongue.
He gave her his sounds, and as they lay there, not speaking, she grew bolder, reaching down to grasp his hand and inch it up to grip the globe of her breast. As he squeezed it gently, he marveled at how perfectly it fit. It filled his hand so that when he squeezed, she overflowed his fingers, so much like the rest of her body, but if he didn’t press, if he just held her gently, she fit perfectly. The tiny sound she gifted him when he shifted his hand to roll her nipple between two fingers caused perhaps the sweetest use of the letters 'NG' he had ever heard. He stayed on that breast, grasping and pressing, pinching and rolling with varying amounts of pressure, conducting his own experiments and cataloging his results. If they were to have this, this window into a perfect love, he would do everything in his power to ensure she remembered it that way.