Children with Dreams

Warning: Sexual Content.

Returning to the abandoned home where they’d first slept together, Danielle and Lupita kissed passionately the moment the door was closed. Danielle’s hunting bow made the experience as uncomfortable as it was wonderful. The grip of the bow around her chest pressed against the armour she always wore. The warrior was fine. Lupita winced from the bow pressing into her but couldn’t seem to tear herself off, despite the discomfort.

            At last, they broke apart gasping for air. Danielle pulled the bow up off over her shoulder and removed her quiver. She lay them down on the floor. By the time she had turned to look at Lupita, the smith’s daughter had her tabard up over her head, brushing against her short brown hair.

            Lupita tore off the many layers of the warrior’s armour as if their lives depended on it. The lusty witch fumbled with the straps holding on Miss Longbow’s pauldrons and tossed them to the floor with no regard for their condition or the clanging sound it made. Next came the chainmail. Beneath it the well-muscled arms of the aspiring knight were revealed.

            Almost forgetting the rest of Danielle’s clothes, Miss Smith leapt upon the sight of new flesh. Kissing and biting the skin of the warrior's arms she breathed deeply. She looked up as the warrior grabbed a handful of her curly black hair and pulled her in for another kiss.

            Miss Longbow felt the nip of teeth on her lip as her hands moved down Lupita’s body. Pale hands calloused by a bow and a sword flowed over the curves of the woman who had been a friend. Miss Smith laughed and gasped in one as a strong hand lifted her off her feet by her behind. She draped her hands around the muscular neck of her lover and exhaled the hot breath of lust.

            Blind as she tried to carry her lover to the bedroom, Danielle cradled the precious head of her first romantic acquaintance. That hand smacked into the wall next to the door she had been aiming for. The city girl in the safe embrace of the village warrior laughed as they were pressed together and held the warrior’s face with both hands.

            Lupita’s hands had the callouses of a smith. From holding a hammer. From burning them on cooling steel. Half of the prints on her fingers had been erased by burns. The cruel pink lines stuck out on the dark brown skin pressed against the lily white.

            “Can you hear my heart beating?” Lupita asked. Taking Danielle’s free hand, the city girl pressed it to her chest. “Can you feel it?” She couldn’t feel it. The warrior was shaking from the rush of her own hormones. She was doing all she could not to rip off Miss Smith’s clothes there and then.

            Backing through the door into the bedroom, the warrior who had been giving archery tutelage for the two previous hours threw her lover down on the bed. Fiddling with the laces on her pourpoint, the warrior looked up to see Lupita had already undressed completely. Soon they were pulling at the tough strings that held on the padding that went beneath Danielle’s chainmail.

            The hot stink of exercise released when the quilted doublet was removed was powerful. Luckily the city girl seemed too drunk on lust to care. Miss Smith pulled the country girl’s undershirt up faster than Danielle could raise her arms to assist.

            The shining sweat of hard work and many layers was slick beneath the witch’s caress. After years of pretending feelings she had weren’t there, it was almost too much for the girl from Fisher’s Gasp. While the woman from Leonor city kissed her bare flesh the warrior absorbed every detail of her body. Beautiful.

            Unable to stop herself looking back, the warrior daughter of a wayward knight wondered if either of them had barred the door. No. Lupita didn’t take a break from kissing every inch of her chest as she moved Danielle’s hand from the concave of her lower back to the convex of her bum.

            “I should bar the door,” the knight’s daughter whispered.

            “Good idea. Be quick.” Lupita physically deflated as she exhaled to catch her breath. She was glowing with a flush of red beneath the melanin.

            Moving with near supernatural haste trained into her by the knight Sir Fabian before he’d been knighted. She lifted the heavy bar and slid it gently into place across the door. Listening for a second to check there were no voices lingering in the street outside, she turned to see the smith’s daughter in the doorway.

            “Sir Longbow, hurry up and come to bed,” whispered the woman born and raised in Leonor City.

            She didn’t have to ask twice.

            “I’ve told you I’m not a knight.” Danielle felt a graceless lummox as she smacked into the doorframe. She was too focused on the body of the goddess walking backwards to the bed to see where her shoulders were going.

            “Not yet, hero. Be careful with that body of yours, I haven’t even started with it yet.” The smile Lupita wore was a million lusty secrets. Her eyes were the fire of sweet inevitability. “I know you love your layers Danielle, but for fuck’s sake, get those clothes off.” Miss Smith gestured to the leather hiding the warrior’s legs.

            “What are we?” asked the knight’s daughter, as a question that had been gathering itself rose from the depths of her mind.

            “Young and beautiful?” Lupita said with dismissive breaths.

            “To each other?”

            “Near and naked. Who cares about the rest right now?”

            “I feel possessed. I can’t catch my breath. I’m shaking.” Danielle held up hands which had held steady for hours of battle during the siege days before but were trembling like a leaf in the breeze.

            “Scared?” asked the smith’s daughter.

            “Terrified,” nodded the warrior. She knew the irony. Her arms were thicker than Lupita’s thighs.

            “Then you clearly have something good. I’m sorry that’s so new to you.”

            They embraced. The villager’s head rested in the black hair of the city woman. The rushed madness had dissipated. The once abandoned daughter from Fisher’s Gasp felt the comforting hands of Miss Smith on her back.

            Danielle thought back to the last time she had been so comfortable in an embrace. She had been a tiny child, little more than a toddler. Her mother had held her close to soothe the terror of a child’s accident. The bittersweet memory was ruined by those later of that same mother tossing her out and denying her.

            A cold disconnection came over the child of Darren the Disgraced. She had since decided that memories of love once felt were lies. She felt like a fool falling for those lies again. Her shoulders slumped.

            “What is it?” Lupita asked.

            “Don’t hurt me,” Danielle whispered. She stared into the shadowy corner of the room. The thunderous beating of her heart slowed. “Love never turned out well for me. Being with you makes me feel alive, but-” the warrior searched for words in the bare vocabulary stored away in her mind. “I feel as though I’ve put a knife to my own heart and given you the handle.”

            “I’m not going to hurt you, poet. It’s all new for me as well. Let’s not talk of love just now. We’ve both been betrayed by love. Just kiss me and let lust be what it is.”

            Danielle stared into Lupita’s deep brown eyes and nodded. When they kissed again the heat was gone. Wishing she wasn’t crying; the mountainous warrior closed her eyes. The tremor of emotion settled as the mere touch of a beautiful woman calmed the storm within her soul. Whether they stood entangled for moments or hours was hard to know.

            Breaking away from the smith’s gentle arms the villager looked down into the eyes of the urbanite. It was not lust she felt. Pure serenity filled her. She could have looked at her lover forever. She took in the details of the pretty face like never before. As if she knew, Miss Smith was statuesque. Only a shiver split the long moment of admiration.

            “I dream about you,” Danielle said. She ran the back of her fingers down Lupita’s face with reverent devotion. “I dream of a world where we don’t have to hide away. We walk hand in hand through crowded streets, fearless. We’re not brave in the dreams. No one blinks an eye at our kiss in a bar. If they look, they smile to see something they want. I dream that we are everything I thought was impossible. I don’t want to hide how I feel about you. I want the world to know.”

            Rising on her tiptoes, the witch with a smith’s hands smiled a honey sweet smile. She inhaled the raw honesty from the pale warrior.

            “I want that. You must have the gift of prophecy.” Lupita said it as if it was possible.

            “They’re just beautiful dreams,” said the pessimist. The petite goddess in her arms shook her head.

            “We will make that world. Your might-” Miss Smith squeezed Miss Longbow’s arms. The blacksmith’s fingers sat almost flat on the great curve of the warrior’s muscles. “My magic.” She blew a kiss.

            “I’ve seen girls beaten and sent to opposite ends of Crann Kingdom for less than we’ve done.” Danielle gulped as she remembered her introduction to homophobia.

            “We are not girls. If you hold me with all of your strength, there’s not an army that could rip us apart.” Deceptively strong arms pulled the warrior to the bed.

            Danielle lay down on the straw mattress. The prickle of individual straws poking her back was forgotten the moment her lover sat atop her smiling like a farmer who’s dug up a lost treasure hoard.

            They kissed with wandering hands. Magical sparks seemed to travel through her body as the villager squeezed her paramour so hard, she was certain to bruise. Her heart rate sped up from a trot to a canter and accelerated to a gallop. She forgot her woes. There was no moment but those between them. There was nothing in the world but the woman in her arms. As kisses turned the spark of her lust into an inferno she began to gasp. Gasps became primal wails. Forgetting herself completely, she screamed. Exhaling her worries, she held onto the mattress. The world itself seemed to turn beneath her.

            With casual brilliance, Lupita played her like an instrument. Danielle held the smith’s hair. Her eyes rolled back into her head. She had forgotten quite how high she could fly on her lover’s tongue. Something was close. Something wonderful. Something terrifying. Her back arched.

            The hot explosion was a shock despite the warning. She saw a divine smile on Lupita’s face as she looked down with her mouth open wide in a silent scream.

            Winking, Miss Smith crawled back up Miss Longbow’s trembling body and lay her head on the pale chest that rose and fell with all the haste of a marathon runner at full tilt.

            “Rest my beautiful,” said the urbanite whose hair had never tickled the villager more. “It’s my turn next.”

            Lupita was the ballast that kept Danielle from floating off into the sky. The warrior held the witch with desperate need.

            Fatigue fell across her in a leaden blanket. Only pride lifted her from her back. Her every muscle twitched from the aftershocks of her pleasure. It was a heaven she would return doubled if the act killed her. And if it did? Not a bad way to die.

            Only stopping when the blacksmith’s daughter fell asleep, Danielle lay down beside her and fell asleep almost instantly.

            There was no light in the room when she woke. A blank wooden wall faced her as she lay on her side, almost off the bed. A warm arm hung over her hip. She felt shallow breath in the small of her back. As her eyes adjusted, she could see the mirky shapes of their clothes scattered across the floor.

            Loathe as she was to leave, she had been expected to swear an oath of allegiance promptly after the public archery lessons. She was no doubt due for a scolding when she met the knights of the city guard again. Sneaking off to experience bliss wasn’t something she was ever going to apologise for.

            “Lupita?”

            Sleeping beauty groaned.

            “I need to go. I’m going to be in shit for wandering off.”

            “I’m worth it,” said the smith.

            “You are, but I need to make amends, so that this isn’t the last time.”

            “We will make your dreams come true,” said the focus of Danielle’s dirtiest fantasies.

            “Again?”

            “Soon,” whispered Miss Smith.

            “I’m going to go. If you’re staying, you’ll need to bar the door behind me.”

            “I can barely feel my legs.”

            “Lucky you,” smiled the villager, “mine ache.”

            “If you can’t walk, you can’t leave.” With her eyes still closed, Lupita smiled.

            “If only.”

            Standing up, the warrior groaned. Every muscle was stiff. She needed water. She needed a hot bath and a thousand years of sleep. She needed a reason to have disappeared.

            Her eyes adjusted slowly to the dark. She found her trousers then her underwear. Her resting lover wolf whistled. In the dark all that could be seen was the curved outline of her form and the whites of her eyes.

            “Encore,” whispered the shadow on the bed.

            “Tomorrow.”

            “Promise?” The question was pleading. Afterword, the heaving groans told Miss Longbow that sleeping beauty had risen.

            Joints clicked and cracked as the woman from Fisher’s Gasp stretched her weary bones. Her moans and groans were echoed by the woman of Leonor as they gathered far flung items.

            Dressing in the dark was a greater challenge than either might have credited. All of their fingers were thumbs after their minds had scattered to the four winds. That struggle seemed to take an age compared to the brief hours of lustful indulgence before.

            At last Danielle threw the strap of her quiver over her shoulder and picked up her bow. The familiar weight of her armour had only been heavier after full nights of fighting the enemy on the city walls.

            With a last kiss goodbye and the promise that it was but the second time of many, the warrior snuck away.

            Outside the home with the red cross on the door, the sun was setting over Leonor. The streets were empty. Cobbles felt less firm beneath her feet than hours before. Muck on the stone was more slippery.

            The acid taste of dehydration complimented the first hints of a headache.

            The red disc of the sun sat behind the black rooftops of homes and hovels. Here and there the light reflected on a new nail. Those sparks in the black seemed brighter than ever before. Blinking cats’ eyes on a rooftop watched her.

            With the key from her purse, she unlocked the door to the Castel home.

            Waiting for her on a chair facing the door was a weather worn knight. The milky eye was as blind as ever but the blue one on the left caught her straight away.

            “There you are. Where the fuck have you been?” His gruff voice complimented his appearance and the well-worn armour he sat in.

            “Acquainting myself with the gods, Sir Lennox.” She smiled, hoping he would as well.

            “The way things have been recently; I almost believe you. You were to swear your oath. Instead, it looks as if you lost a battle.” He stood as stiffly as her, though she suspected for reasons of age rather than sheer sexual exhaustion. His armour scraped and clanked.

            “It was at the very least a draw,” she said. Even if he didn’t get the joke she was laughing inwardly. The twitch of her muscles was agony.

            “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about, but if you want to swear your oath then you’ll come with me. If not, I’ll assume you’ve forsaken your dream of becoming a knight.”

            “No. No. Definitely not. Sir.”

            “Quit the sir. You’ve done great service to the city and the kingdom already. When you swear your oath, you’ll be pledging to do so again and again. The schedule will not take note of your whims, or those of your gods.”

            “I understand.” She tried to stand straight.

            “You want to swear for the watch or the army? It’s not much different now, but if things get back to anything like normal, they’re very different roles.”

            “I know sir.” Danielle nodded. “The city guard rarely left the walls. They were defenders of Leonor first, Crann Kingdom second. Soldiers in the army could be sent off beyond the borders to fight for their country. They more often made names for themselves in battles, but the mortality rate was steeper. Since the battle of Worldworm’s Bridge the army was essentially non-existent. They had been the ones who saw the world. They were the ones in the stories you heard as a child. “I want to join the army.”

            “Very well. As I say, for now there’s not much difference. If you’re ready, come with me.” It wasn’t quite a question. He moved to the door.

            “If I can just fetch my shield and sword Sir Lennox, I’ll be right with you.”

            He nodded. When she was ready, she followed him. Off to the castle they went.

            Up the hill, the mighty grey tower of Leonor Castle loomed high. It was not the pretty thing of children’s stories. It was an imposing block of granite soaring into the sky, from which the royals could see half of their kingdom. It was another big step towards one of Danielle’s wildest dreams.