21. The Hands of the Wind
Chapter 21
The Hands of the Wind
T he morning of their eighth day, Celestine joined Azure in his hunt. He walked Ferro out, a short bow slung across his back. Leather boots padding softly on the ground.
Azure asked Celestine hold Ferro, teaching her how to unhood him and how to send him forth. Azure threw stones among the grasses in different directions.
“Now, Celestine!”
A flurry of fur moved among the grasses, darting in and out of the tall stalks. Celestine threw the hawk into the air, where he screeched, climbing high and circling.
“He goes, Celestine! He goes!” Azure was laughing.
She watched with rapt attention. Ferro climbed higher and higher, screaming against the sky. His brown wings beat harder and harder.
Magnificent.
Then he dove, instead of fighting the air, he used it. He was so fast. The hawk screamed and plummeted towards the earth to a nestle of grass she could not see. She heard the brief squeal of an animal cut short in death.
Celestine jogged up. Azure followed from his side.
“Praise him, Celestine. But do not allow him to eat. He must return to your glove first.”
Celestine walked closer and closer. Ferro was sitting proudly above a dispatched hare. His beak held a bit of fur.
“Come, Ferro, come.” Celestine reached out, guiding him to her glove. For a moment, the hawk would not move. Then he screeched once and hopped onto her glove.
“Good boy! Such a good boy.” Celestine wrapped the throngs around his legs to her wrist. She reached up, avoiding a friendly peck from his bloodied beak, and ran the back of her fingers along his proud feathers.
“You did wonderfully,” she whispered. She had never hunted before, not once.
“A treat, Celestine. In your pocket.” Azure motioned to her.
“Right,” she said. She held the bird high. He was quite heavy. Then she produced a dried mouse from her jacket pocket Azure had given her to wear.
Ferro took the morsel and ate.
“Grab your kill, Final Bride.” Azure watched her.
Celestine bent low, picking up the dead hare. There were puncture marks where Ferro had killed it. A bit of blood dribbled from its nose.
So helpless, so fragile. But when she glanced at Ferro, she felt the unity of the world, and all animals had their place in it.
“I will clean this one, you the next.” Azure held his hand out, and she handed him the dead hare.
“Thank you, brother,” The Lord of the Blue Banners whispered and kissed the dead bunny on the nose. “He is ready, Celestine. Fly him again. We’ll move to the north. Garo waits for us that way, anyway.”
“Let's go.” Celestine was already walking, holding the hawk high. The thrill of the hunt was surprising. It was wondrous to see Ferro do what he was meant to.
Wings are meant to spread, talons to taste blood. It is the order of things.
That order, illustrated so clearly in the vast plains and hills along the realm of the Blue Banner, reassured her.
Celestine’s time with Tristien had been nothing but structure. A choking, suffocating structure. Where the rules arose and fell and changed constantly. Even had she not placed the circlet upon him, her world would have become smaller and smaller.
Yet there was nothing but space here on the plains of Azure’s lands. A freedom that was as vast as the sky above her each day. It was easy to lose yourself here. But Azure drew her forth. There were no guards. He often walked without even his sword. But she had never felt safer. They walked the plains to listen to the wind and watch nature. The hare ran and burrowed. The hawk soared and dove, spreading its wings proudly after a kill. Foxes and mice and other creatures moved swiftly and with purpose.
The order of nature, not man or a Lord of Season, reigned here.
Each day, she hunted. Sometimes with Ferro, eventually with a sling or the curved bow of Lord Azure. They drank water from streams. Her bare feet grew strong and calloused among the grasses.
In the mornings, she dressed near Azure, her shame and timidity gone now. Because there was security when he was close. For some reason, she knew no other Lord would dare invade his beautiful lands. He was not here to teach her about his wants and desires or prove himself.
Azure was bent on showing her the vast sky above them, the swirling grasses, and the silence of no words.
Garo broke down the bricks and stones encased around her emaciated soul. Something was gained with each hare she ate, mouse, squirrel, or fish from the stream. It had no name, no explanation. The soul and body she walked in would never return to what it was. The scars would heal and fade, but the trace of them would always be upon her flesh.
“There is no choice but to return to what we were,” Azure said one evening as they tossed their wooden bowls into the fire. “But a man can starve to death staring at what he once was or what happened to him.”
“What do we do, then?” Celestine asked.
“We look but do not stare. We either move or we wither. Each morning, we must face the brutality of the vast sky. Only walking under it saves us. Man is a cursed creature, but the sky gives us the gift of healing our own folly.”
Celestine nodded. Their bowls burned in the fire. She set about carving her next one for tomorrow. She never asked why they burned their bowls. Perhaps it was to serve a single purpose and move on. To see the futility of holding onto old things. Perhaps it was something to do. And that was reason enough.
The kind eyes of Lord Azure watched her daily. But it was Garo that brought her to herself.
One morning, after Celestine brushed the young colt, a new allowance the horse made, Azure said it was time.
“You have learned the earth. You have come closer to him. The two of you have embraced one another, and he eats from your palm the treats you pluck from my lands. He wants to be ridden. Do you feel it?”
Celestine was staring into Garo’s flesh, brushing him. “I do…”
“But you are afraid.”
“I am,” Celestine answered. This was the nature of their conversations. A pure truthfulness, a forthrightness. No games, no maze to enter and leave. Azure encouraged her to speak truthfully. What she wanted, what she didn’t. What she needed.
For Celestine, born in the Painted Realm, women were taught to be what was needed. Proper, polite, and ready to serve. The unmarried helped around the house and kept themselves chaste. The wedded entered into a lifelong union with their husbands.
If that meant being loved and adored, that was a great thing. If it meant bearing the bruises of a man who never lived up to what he could be or lost himself in women or drink, such was fate. Tales were sung by great warriors who bore wounds, and men sang their choruses. No one sang for the valor of the woman who picked up her crying child and soothed them while her splintered ribs encased an abandoned heart.
“Horses are safest in their stables,” Azure said. “But that is not what they are for. Imagine Ferro never taking to the sky.”
“I don’t want to own him,” Celestine said. It was truth. “Nor bridle or bind him.”
“Nor should you, nor can you.” Azure stepped forward, brushing Garo with her. “Most men enslave beasts. The greatest riders join with them. They guide one another. It is time to try, Celestine. You cannot flee from what happened to you, nor should you.”
“Then what?” Celestine turned to him. Lustrous brown eyes stared at her. Encarmine had been rugged and tragic to behold. Tristien; beautiful and enticing. Azure was the ease that came with confidence that needed nothing. Graceful, true, and utterly inviting without anything concealed.
Celestine found she coveted him most when he laughed. When he laughed, it was the truest thing she had ever heard. Of late, as the wall crumbled each day around her soul, she caught herself looking at him. His beautiful dark flesh, his practiced hands, how he held himself. He was Lord of these lands, a Season in itself, not as its master. Azure was its steward.
Her steward.
He had taken her from Tristien’s manor, wounded and dying. Azure had carried her, literally, from the brink of death. The nightmares faded, ceasing in their intensity. They worked constantly, carrying water, hunting, and gathering.
Celestine reached out to her protector, her guide, and touched him. It was the first time they had touched since he had tended to her wounds or he had comforted her that one day she wept. Even then, that had been a healing touch.
She made a choice. Celestine ran her hand over his as his lingered on Garo. His strong hand interlaced from under hers, holding it.
“Are you ready?” Azure asked her.
“Yes,” Celestine said. She felt the energy of the earth beneath her. The presence in this moment. There was no staring at the past, no fear of the future. There was only grass and soil, his guiding hand, and Garo’s rippling flesh.
That choice was an offering, she knew, as she touched him. But Lord Azure did not take her offering for himself. He did not pull her down into an embrace. He did not pull her clothes off there in the fields and take her or command her to worship him.
Rather, he lifted her up. Giving her to another.
She reached for Garo’s mane. Her leg swung over.
Celestine sat upon Garo, petting him, feeling his strong flanks between her legs. For a moment, she felt off-center, far away, ungrounded.
“Be one with him,” Azure guided her with his voice. “Feel his hooves upon the ground. Your legs on either side of him. When he gallops, he doesn’t run from the earth. He runs with it. Using it.”
Celestine nodded, closing her eyes. She could feel Garo’s pulse, the shift of his gait. He whinnied, looking to the horizon. There was no bucking or breaking. Somehow, in their relationship, where they drew closer and closer to one another, she had earned this by joining him.
“He wants to run.” Azure looked up at her. “Not away from here, but to somewhere else. Do you see the difference?”
“Yes,” Celestine breathed out the words. She opened her eyes.
Yes.
Garo took off, trotting faster and faster. He tossed his muzzle in a large whine, the excitement building in her as well. She had no tack, no saddle. Never had she seen anyone ride bareback on anything but a donkey.
Don’t think of that. Think of him. Be with him.
Azure laughed behind her as Garo ran, not quite a gallop yet. The wind flew from behind her, racing to catch up to their pace. Celestine grinned. She laced her fingers through his mane. The bones of his spine flexed up and down, and it was painful, so she leaned forward, laying across him, gripping her legs and heels, barefoot, into his flesh.
Garo snorted and ran. The plain thundered underneath them. She tried to match his movements. The balance was hard, but he seemed to sense this and tried to take her with him.
They broke into a gallop, the plain and mountains rising and falling beside them. Celestine felt such a closeness with his body. Every muscle moving and flexing told her where to shift, lean, and evade.
The wind sailed through her clothes. She glanced up at the sky, rocking above her, watching her, riding far from Azure.
She was laughing.
That night, Celestine sat with Azure around their campfire. She was thankful for the cushions because half of her body was a gigantic bruise. It had felt like an eternity, but she had eventually slipped from Garo’s. The ground might be soft in the plains, but when she tumbled into it like a crashing storm, she had feared her bones would break.
Her body had changed in its time here. She had left Encarmine’s realm strong, sturdy, with more muscle. She had left Tristien’s more a whisper than a woman.
Her tendons were more limber here, from bending and rising, from walking among the plains. Her ligaments were constantly shifting, adjusting. The colors of the plain were vast, bright, and filled her soul with their reflection as she walked. There was a different strength here within her. Not one born of the brunt of a shield, the exertion of combat, nor the strength to withstand pain or lash.
In its magnificence, the body adapted to what she needed and used it for. This strength was one of flexibility, of balance, and of speed.
“Come, let us stretch by the fireside.” Azure beckoned her up as dinner cooked in a black kettle above the flames.
It was the last thing Celestine wanted to do, so she did it.
“The body shies away from our labor, but we have to coax it, like we do Garo, into what it can become, not what it wants to.”
If you say so.
The bruise on her ass felt much different from this philosophy. But she knew Azure would not lead her astray. She trusted him.
He bent low, walking his hands along the ground back into himself. His spine flexing, his muscles elongating, and then returning. She did the same. Then they crouched, keeping their heels and palms of their hands to the ground, staring at one another.
He is lovely. They all are. Yet he is so different.
Celestine smiled, feeling her hips open, her shoulder blades spread. For a moment, a blessed moment, the pain ceased.
“Now we fall,” Azure murmured, and he crouched low, bringing his head to his ankles. “Feel your body.”
She followed suit, and the stretch against her seized tendons was intense, but it was a slow rope straining.
“Roll your neck,” Azure said. She watched him, rolling his head from shoulder to shoulder, round circles like the bright moon above them.
She winced, a spasm jolting in her neck. Azure noticed.
“May I help you?” he asked.
Celestine sat back on her rear. She nodded.
“That is enough for today. Your body will thank you.”
What if I want your body to thank me?
She had broken the wall that had been built around her. Garo had seen to that. She knew what Azure had wanted to teach her. It had come from her throat this very day as the sweet laughter, the pure joy of the speed upon the plain, had engulfed her.
Laughter.
Celestine was a woman, not a young bride, fretful and afraid. Encarmine had taken her, and she him, as had Tristien. Even in that travesty, she had ownership. There was a handle, a form now, to her own lust. People in the Painted realm considered women to be wanton and shrews when unwatched. Unable to contain themselves. Which was absurd. But in that gross miscalculation, society stifled their genuine desire and needs. You could never be alone with a man because you would seduce him. People could not trust you because they believed you were sin incarnate.
Not here. Not among the Seasons of Summer. She knew her body and her soul. When she was hungry, she ate. When she thirsted, she drank. When she tired of running, she walked. Even Tristien had never regarded her own desire that way. It was a living thing, a part of her, not to be denied. Not owned or subjugated.
Azure sat behind her as she warmed herself by the fire. She undid the ties along her shirt and drew it from her, sitting bare-chested by the flames. In the mornings, she dressed near him. She was no longer ashamed or even aware of her nudity, or when she squatted among the plain or cleaned herself with the streams and grass. They were in nature, and you did what was natural in nature.
His long legs sat astride either side of her. Azure’s muscled chest touched her back briefly before he leaned back, and his large hands worked at the clusters of spasms in her back, in her neck. Knot after spasm flared under his touch, but his gift was reading her. Knowing her. What she needed.
What she wanted.
Azure rode the knots down under his fingertips. The muscles coiled, avoiding further injury.
Just like me. But he finds them. He brings them forth.
The campfire warmed her front. Slowly, the tension in her neck released itself under his attentive massaging. He was firm, direct, but caring. Gentle.
“Thank you,” Celestine whispered.
Azure worked on the muscles between her neck and shoulder. “Will you ride tomorrow?”
“Of course,” she said instantly.
“But you’re injured?”
Celestine smiled. “I am. And I will ride.”
“I figured as much.”
“I hunger,” Celestine spoke. Azure withdrew from her, and she ate with him, still bare, allowing herself to be warmed by the fire.
Celestine felt it as they supped on the stew of pigeon and tubers and bread. A different hunger. She looked at Azure. Her lust had not even reared its head since leaving Tristien. Something she figured might not truly return; if it did, it might frighten her.
But like her soul, when it did return in that moment, it was different. It sought to gallop, to run.
To be ridden.
Azure glanced at her from across the fire.
We like to be seen.
It was the mantra of his people, and it was hers now while she was here. She set her bowl down while he stared at her and slowly slid the warm poultice from her chest, the water evaporating against the heat of the fire.
Her nipples hardened, and she looked at him, running her hand along her breast.
It should be your hands.
Lord Azure watched her, lust flashing in his eyes for the very first time since they had met. The circlet on his brow didn’t change. He was still the same large, powerful Lord. The same Azure.
Celestine locked eyes with him. She stood slowly, eyes never leaving his. Her hands undid her belt, and she shimmied her pants and undergarments down, the cool air touching her flesh.
Kicking the pants aside, she stood beside the fire. Naked, bare for him. There was no servitude here. The hawk hunted the plains. The horse ran it. They found what their bodies needed, unashamed.
Just as she did.
Azure did not move further from her, nor closer. His beautiful eyes slid over her, and Celestine ran her hands over her own body. Her breast, her belly, her thighs as she knelt down.
This was another dance. Another approach, not unlike her training with Garo. However, it was she who guided this.
I will show myself to him. He reads me like a torn book, bound back together. Now, I spread my pages and invite his loving eyes to taste the words in my bones.
Celestine knelt, knees on the ground, legs spread. She could feel the earth through her kneecaps and the tops of her feet.
She rubbed herself, running a hand over her breast, gyrating against her fingers and the crisp night air. Azure watching her, seeing her. It made her wet. And she wanted him to see.
Celestine ran her tongue over her lips slowly, grinding her quim against her own twirling fingers. Azure’s eyes never left her. She loved him watching her, showing herself to him.
“I used to ride my pillow in the late hours. I would moan silently, afraid of being caught,” She whispered the confession. But as soon as the words hit the air there was no shame, only the shame of ever feeling they were anything but truth.
Azure smiled slightly. “And then?”
“And then,” Celestine huffed as she rubbed her clit harder, rising and falling from her heels, wanting him to see. Her hair had regrown. It was slick with her desire. “I moaned louder sometimes. I wanted them to hear, maybe. To be caught.”
Azure watched her. “To be seen.”
“Yes.” Celestine writhed. A tremor of pleasure ran up to her shoulders. “Yes. I’m going to come for you. I want you to see me.”
“I have always.” Azure stood and walked closer to her. They were nearly touching. He sat, hands running over the air above her body, not touching her, but nearly. “Seen you.”
Celestine shut her eyes, feeling him so close. “I know,” she moaned. When she came, her body tensed, hips jutting forward, and she rubbed slowly, hips rolling slowly to meet her fingers. When she opened her eyes at the peak, Azure watched her. Reading her. Taking her in.
“Hold me,” Celestine said. They laid back on the cushions, and she fell into his arms. Curling side by side, she turned into his chest, nuzzling there, and his powerful arms wrapped around her while the firelight warmed them.
“Do you want my mouth?” Celestine asked him after a moment.
Azure smiled. “Shh, rest now.”
She nodded, nuzzling closer to him. It had been a question born of repayment, not of want necessarily, and he knew it.
In the middle of the night, Celestine suddenly woke. For once, there had been no bad dream. She glanced around the dying firelight at their camp, the bright stars glinting so numerous above them. A wolf-skin pelt draped over them, and they had slept entwined in each other’s arms.
Celestine looked at him. He was beautiful in starlight. His dark skin glinting in the dying firelight. Across from them, his armor danced in the light's reflection.
She felt whole suddenly. Not different, but new. This waking in the middle of the night, she hadn’t felt it in a long time. Like when she had been home. Arousal pulsed within her. In sleep, the body healed, it rejuvenated.
Celestine slid from Azure, nude, and she watched him sleep. She reached out for a silken cushion, like a long roll, and straddled it between her legs. Just as she had all those nights in her home.
Slowly, bending low, she ground against it. Her southern lips towing back and forth, the cloth in its silken firmness finding where she grew firm, enticing her clit. She ground, riding back and forth until her cunt wet the cushion.
All those nights in her father’s keep, aching for the touch of another. To be seen. To be discovered. The girl of the Painted Realm, no banner, no allegiance, out giving herself among the fields. She used to dream of a dark stranger taking notice of her, of the real her, and eying her like a hawk. He would be unable to look away. He would want her. Want to know her.
Celestine shuddered, her breasts lit by moonlight next to Azure’s sleeping form. She slid back and forth, titillating sensations dancing within her, her quim growing hungrier.
She moaned, soft and then louder. Like she had when that guard first joined her father’s service. The one with the gruff face. Celestine moaned again, wanting to be seen.
Azure woke silently. He stared at her, his eyes open in the dying firelight.
Celestine looked at him, unashamed, and continued grinding, sliding harder and harder against the pillow.
“What would he have done had he heard your moans and entered?” Azure’s deep voice asked her.
“He would have…” Celestine groaned, riding harder. “Been shocked. But intrigued.”
“How could he not be?” Azure murmured. He slowly pushed himself up, watching her. Slowly, very slowly, he undid his belt.
“He would’ve gotten so hard, seeing the ward he was supposed to protect. The proper maiden, pleasuring herself. With her silken pillows.”
Azure unbuttoned his pants and spread them, pulling out his thick manhood. “He would’ve shown it to you—what you did to him. How hard you made him.”
Celestine’s eyes flashed up to his. “He would’ve loved watching me. He would’ve stroked his cock for me to see. The first hard cock I had ever seen.”
Azure stroked himself for her, growing longer, firmer in his hands. Celestine shuddered at seeing his mass even in the half-light of the moon and fire. Thicker even than Tristien. His flesh was magnificent, pulsating for her. The curve of his abs, like river stones under the water of his skin.
“I would’ve felt so bashful, so filthy. Being caught.”
“But proud,” Azure answered, almost guiding her. “Finally seen.”
“And he would’ve,” Celestine breathed the words. Grinding against the pillow, drenching it. “He would’ve brought it closer. Afraid of overstepping, but unable to stop.”
Azure came closer, stroking his vast length. Close enough until she could smell his sweat and musk, intoxicated by this delicate dance.
“And your first kiss would’ve been upon his head,” Azure growled gently, his cock fully hard now, like a bar of iron in his grip.
“Yes,” Celestine moaned. She reached out, grabbing him. It was like gripping the muscles of a great beast. “Give it to me.” Her mouth fell upon him, eager, like she was gasping for air while drowning. She needed him. After all these days on the plain, all the watching, the healing, the movement, the stillness.
Celestine sucked on his head, her mouth straining against his girth. She opened wider, needing to taste him. She fucked the pillow between her legs, her cunt now spasming with need and aching for him. His girth was so large she could barely get it into her throat. She withdrew, gripping him tightly and licking him, sucking and running her lips around his length. She reached out, holding his heavy pouch, and Azure moaned her name.
She sucked on his cock like a whore who lived for it. Like a girl finally getting the attention of the man she had been near for so long, the hints finally giving away to his full awareness. He felt so good in her mouth. Against her throat. He was the wind and the grasses of the plain. His cock was majestic, coated in her saliva, lit by moonlight.
“Ride,” he commanded. Because he could read her, and he knew what she wanted. She ground against the pillow, frantic now, sucking upon him, stroking her hand back and forth along the slickness of his manhood with her throat’s emulsions. Celestine moaned, and when she did, it was a gurgle upon his member, vibrating him.
He pushed forward, and she was glad to take more of him. His fingertips touched her nipples. Choking noises erupted from her, frantic, as she bobbed her head back and forth on him. Wanting him to see her try to take more and more of him.
She gasped for air, holding onto his cock, stroking it furiously. She looked up at him.
“Take me,” she said. It was like anything else they spoke of; she would speak what she needed.
Azure sat quickly and Celestine climbed from the pillow as if boarding from one ship to another.
“It’s so big,” Celestine purred, arching up, steadying the end of his cock against her slick folds. “It’s so..” she went lower, his massive head entering her, stretching her, moving her aside to go deeper. “So fucking, big.”
“Come to me,” Azure asked. His dark hands wrapped around her hips and brought her lower. He sat cross-legged underneath her, a saddle to steady herself upon. Celestine lowered, taking more and more of him. She could feel every part of her lips and cunt stretching to take him.
Her ass fell upon his muscled thighs, and he ran his hands up her back. Their eyes met face to face.
Azure reached forward, kissing her for the first time. His lips were soft and exploratory, and she opened her mouth to taste more of him. She was completely full of him, and he pushed further, making her take more because he knew what she wanted. Celestine encased her arms around his neck, their chests touching as she rose and fell slightly upon him.
Azure kissed her neck, the sound of his kisses and sucks driving her to a slow-building lust until their slow canter turned into a trot and then a gallop as she rode him. Pain and pleasure, the twins that lived within every body, spiraled inside of her and she—
“I’m going to come,” Celestine moaned. She leaned back, placing her hands on his knees, arcing her back towards the sky, riding him. “I’m going to come on your cock.”
Azure didn’t respond. He dove forward, filling his mouth with her right breast, tongue circling it, sucking on it. She shuddered, seeing the stars above them, and he bucked into her, giving her more and more of him until she moaned, and when she came, he strode into her, filling her womb with hot seed in agonizing surge after surge.
They kissed and then broke, sitting upright and wrapped around one another, forehead to forehead.
Whatever had dared remain within her of the stones around her soul were gone. It was the weeks on the plain, the grasses, the riding. This was not what brought her to herself. It was what she gave to herself.
When Celestine drifted to a warm sleep, wrapped in his flesh, she felt like she left the wall and walked under a vast blue sky.