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Archive name: Fantasy/aimee-c.txt
Aauthors name: Elf Sternberg
Story title: Aimee - c - Chapter 3

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AIMEE'                                                        Chapter III
~~~~~                                                          ~~~~~~~~~
     As the months rolled by, I began to feel the immense sadness that was 
a part of Ryu.  My senses were being honed by the exercises Desa gave me, 
and more importantly, they were being honed outwards.  A sex mage learns to 
feel his insides, learns to know every inch of himself and what one should 
apply where to make those feelings grow and manifest themselves.  But Desa 
had no interest in an apprentice who couldn't see, Aimee', and so forced me 
into physical exercises to maintain my strength but also to make me aware 
of the world about me.  That is why he began teaching me combat.

     Those were interesting times, Aimee', to have youthful Dragonkin, man 
shaped, fighting me.  Hand to hand, with sticks, and then with swords, I 
learned how to see my opponent, how to hear him and how to smell him.  Six 
months is not a long time, but it was enough to make me aware of Ryu.

     The cheerfulness was facade', Aimee', for inside he was truly hurting.  
His rejection at the hands of his peers was often more than he could bear, 
and I would hear him sob in the night, whether as a way to sleep or 
something from his dreams, I did not know.  In the six months I spent with 
him, rarely did he have Dragon visitors.  Once, Desa came to visit us in 
his full dracoform, and the difference between the two of them was 
bewildering.  Desa was fully three times as broad and four long compared to 
Ryu.  I started to understand Ryu's pain.  None of his visitors were 
evidently female.

     It was in the eighth month, as the snows began to lighten up and the 
sun returned more often, that I asked Desa permission to study beyond my 
ken.

     "What are you seeking?" he asked.

     "I want to research the library to learn how to look at the origin of 
a creature."

     Desa looked understandably concerned.  "The alchemy of life is one of 
the most difficult sciences known, young Darynn.  What are seeking?"

     "I want to know what makes a creature large or small."

     He nodded.  "His tears get to you, too."

     "I can bear it, sir, but not forever.  He will die without help."

     "And you think you can help him."

     "I can look for an answer."

     Desa paused, thinking.  "Very well.  I want to know every detail of 
your research.  In this science, if you cast even a cantrip I want to know 
about it.  Understand?"

     I nodded.


     Four months more before I could take it no more.  From my sleep the 
sounds of crying roused me.  You have never heard a Dragon cry, Aimee', but 
describing it is beyond me.  It's a great roaring sound, unmistakable in 
its sadness and unbelievable in its depth.  I threw aside my bedclothes and 
leapt off the edge of the ring, flying down one ring level to Ryu's 
sleeping dish.  A bowl, set into the material of the ring and layered in 
cushions, provided him a comfortable bed.

     I dropped to my knees.  "Ryu," I said softly.  It was drowned out in 
the crying.  "Ryu," I repeated louder.  Finally I reached out and touched 
him.  "Ryu!"

     [WHAT?]  The voice punched into my brain with incredible power, 
stunning me and tossing me back against the floor.  "Darynn!"

     Weakly, I managed to say, "Hi... Ryu."

     "What are you doing here?" he asked.

     "You..."  I sat up and brushed myself off.  "You were crying, and it 
wouldn't let me sleep."  I assessed myself.  I was still intact.

     He looked away.  "I'm sorry if my dreams bother you."

     I leaned over and touched his wing.  "I just wanted to know if there's 
anything I can do?"

     He looked up at me, his eyes still wet from the crying.  "You're an 
invert, aren't you?"

     "It took you that long to figure it out?" I asked.  "At least you 
didn't call me a pervert."

     "The ways of humans are still strange, but I don't want to be 
insulting.  What are you... "  Imagination is not the most disciplined part 
of us, Aimee'.  I'm afraid that staring at him, in his bed, conjured up 
those dreams and pictures I had not had in nearly a year.  "Do you really 
look at me that way?"

     Understand, Aimee', that Ryu had never intentionally invaded my 
imagination.  I am simply most obvious in my imaginings when they are 
erotic, and he is apparently at his most undisciplined when he has just 
woken up.  Together the combination was the undoing of my secrecy.  I had 
to say something.  "Yes.  Sometimes."

     "I..."  He paused again.  "I don't know what to say.  Is it physical, 
or are you really attracted to me?"

     "Physically, I am attracted to Dragons, and you in particular, because 
with you my fantasies are most possible.  Emotionally... Ryu, you have been 
very kind to me, and have tried hard to hide your suffering.  I do feel for 
you, and I would like to help you.  I think of you as a wonderful friend."

     "But you couldn't... love me."

     I smiled and stroked his wing slowly.  "Ryu, sometimes I forget that 
you are three times my elder when you have moments like this.  I could love 
you.  It wouldn't last forever, because you are a Dragon and I am human and 
eventually we will be on our different paths to different worlds."

     "But... you really think you could love me?"

     "Sometimes I think I already do."  That came out of my mouth so fast I 
didn't have time to stop it.  I controlled my own surprise and continued 
calmly, "I only think.  It takes more than one-sided lust to make love 
happen."

     He didn't move for a moment, then nodded his prodigous head slowly.  
"It wouldn't work anyway," he said.  "You humans have that mouth thing we 
Dragons could never do."

     "There is a lot more to loving than kisses, Ryu."  I decided the time 
to be bold had come.  I eased into his sleeping bowl and slid down to lie 
next to his body.  "There is touching."  I began to caress his impresive 
chest slowly.  His hide wasn't nearly as hard and thick as I had feared, 
and it was apparently just as sensitive to touch as my own.  The sounds 
from his throat would have been threatening if I hadn't been able to feel 
the pleasure coming from him.

     I decided on what is, perhaps, the most common seduction technique 
left to those of us who move easily amongst males and females.  I gave him 
a massage.  He responded well, cooing softly as I worked.  I had plenty of 
experience in this range, since Thom had been such a demanding master 
sometimes when it came to his own pleasure.

     And I learned a great deal about the outside bodies of Dragons.  I did 
not use any of the cantrips Desa had warned me about, learning instead 
simply by touch, feel, and sense.  At times he would shift in his bed in 
response to my touch.  His strength excited me.  Through my bedclothes my 
erection was plainly visible, and I knew he could feel it when I leaned 
over.

     He never said a word, and by the time I had eased all the tension out 
of him from his dreams and probably the fear of what I offered, he had 
drifted off to solid sleep.  Exhausted by my efforts, I realized that I had 
made one of the cardinal errors of magic; I had used everything in relaxing 
him.  I was too tired to fly back to my own bed.

     There was nothing to be done.  I curled up next to him and fell 
asleep.  We both slept soundly.  When I awoke, he had left me alone, but he 
had also left me to sleep well past sunrise.  For that, at least, I thanked 
him.


     My studies progressed another year.  That sounds like a long jump, 
perhaps, but nothing much happened in between.  After that evening neither 
Ryu or I mentioned the incident to one another.  Ryu didn't keep his 
feelings quite so trapped within, and I saw the blackness more clearly and 
more often, but he also seemed to accept it far more often.

     Instead, I concentrated on my studies, spending six hours every 
morning studying magic until my brain hurt and then working the afternoons 
away either in the smithy or the gymnasium.  I began researching my own 
spell base.  Do you know what a spell base is, Aimee'?  No?

     A spell base is a basic spell idea from which one may weave variants 
dependent upon one's knowledge and talent.  There is a classic spell base 
called, simply, "Pain."  Alone, it does little; causes an itch.  A little 
additional skill, and it can cause great discomfort.  With the knowledge 
base that comes from being a full mage, one can use it to kill with some 
effort, although it is an uncomfortable way to die and there are more 
efficient ways to kill someone magically, like "Sleep" and a slitting of 
throats. 

     I was surprised to find that nobody had ever thought to create a base 
for "Pleasure."  Bases are very simple to use, but hard to construct.  I 
was determined to figure out the base for pleasure.  I took notes 
obsessively.  And, to be honest, when it was discovered among the man-
shaped males of the Megassi what I was, a few were willing to help my 
experiments.

     The other major thrust of my research was to be able to construct a 
method for visualizing that which shapes a being.  I reasoned, and found  
confirmation, that all things that live grow into their shape by some 
unseen mechanism.  I was determined to find a tool for visualizing that 
mechanism.

     I found it.  Not unsurprisingly, someone else had discovered it first 
for the creation of golems of flesh, although the technique as I read it 
was very crude.  I refined it.

     That is an understatement.  When I found it I completely dropped 
everything else.  Only Desa's threats kept me in the gymnasium and the 
smithy.  Males who knew my pleasures sent me letters that I left unopened.  
I burned for nearly four months, and when I was ready, Desa watched as I 
cast the spell for the first time.  On myself.

     Oh, we are such complex creatures, Aimee'!  Even the keys with which 
we are made go on forever and are indescribable but in the spinning bands 
of blue, red, green, and gold that really do describe what we are.  Or at 
least, what our shape would be.  I spent so long examining what I was, 
realizing what I could be with this change or that, that when I was done 
the sun had set and my body had gone into such complete revolt over the 
idignity of ritual penetration combined with prolonged neglect.  I spent 
the rest of the night on the garderobe,  Desa standing outside and grilling 
me about my results until dawn.  

     The research accellerated after that.  I discovered I was forging a 
new kind of magic, a predictive magic that was based on mechanical 
processes, not tinkering with temporal ones.  The fundamental elements were 
alchemical, of course, but ultimately it became a purely spiritual engine 
that allowed me to make a single change, and then change after change after 
change until I got what I wanted.

     It was something of a shock when I realized, suddenly, that I had 
gotten away from the erotic sciences.  I had been too busy taking apart the 
body to appreciate it.  Have you ever been hit on the chin, Aimee'?  I 
swear to you, that is how it felt.  I suddenly spent an entire day 
addressing old friends, diving into a sort of blind, erotic haze, unable to 
think about work because I could think of nothing else but the males I had 
neglected.

     I took control of myself the next day.  I wrote down my thoughts on 
the bodily experimentation as much as I could, then turned my attention 
back to Pleasure.  I think that's my one greatest failure, that I can never 
pay attention to one project at a time.  I constantly change back and 
forth.

     I received permission from Desa to take two weeks off from the smithy, 
but not exercise.  I spent those two weeks catching up with every male I 
knew was amenable to my caresses, and in two weeks I had finished a unified 
base for spells of Pleasure.  

     I documented my spell base comprehensively and mailed it to here, to 
Barraminum and the College of Mages.  Over a year would pass before I heard 
the reply.

     As I crawled into my bed one night, however, a voice from the edge of 
the ring interrupted my desire to sleep.  "Darynn?"

     "Ryu?  Hi."

     "Hi yourself.  Long time no see."

     "I'm sorry," I said.  "I just completed a fully functional spell base, 
and I decided to turn it into the College of Mages for acceptance."

     "That's quite an achievement."  He was quiet for a moment, then said, 
"Darynn, why is it you never asked me to help you test those spells?"

     "I... "  I was caught.  I had wanted to practice with him, but knowing 
him as I did I had never felt comfortable approaching him.  I wondered if I 
could bluff my way through this encounter.  "Desa said I wasn't to 
pracitice on someone without his permission."

     "That was the animal alchemy, Darryn.  His warnings were not related 
to the base you created."

     "But... you are my host, Ryu.  What if I did use them on you?  What 
obligations would we have?  What about addiction..."

     "Is that your concern?  That I might become addicted to the pleasures 
you could give me without your hands?  Only if you used them on me with 
regularity, and then only if they surpassed the pleasures you  could 
inflict on me with your hands.  Which is something you've never tried 
anyway."

     Almost two years had passed since I had made my promise to Desa that I 
would seduce and love Ryuchitoran.  I wanted to, Aimee', truly I did.  But 
for some reason I felt reluctance, an inertia to begin.  I did not know 
what I was getting into.  "Ryu..."

     "You said once you could love me, but you've never said anything to me 
about it since."

     The truth welled up out of me then, although I managed to squelch it 
almost into silence.  Sometimes I curse the fact that Dragons have such 
good ears.  Sometimes I bless it.  "You never gave me an answer."

     "What?" he asked, not hearing.

     "I said you never gave me an answer."

     "I didn't know there was a question."

     "Ryu..." I sighed.  "If we were to... love... would you understand 
when I returned to the world of men?"

     "Yes."  His word was as simple as that, and as convincing.  I reached 
out my hand and beckoned him to come to me.

     The bed had been made for his changeling days, and as he flopped into 
it, it creaked painfully but did not crack, and although his tail draped 
over the side he easily fit all the rest of him onto it.  His large head 
lay down next to mine on the pillows.  "I don't know where to  go from 
here," he said.

     "I remember touching," I replied.  I reached out and stroked his broad 
chest, feeling the scales sliding under my fingertips, feeling the caress 
of his skin.  Dragons have hearts, despite the legends, and I could hear 
his beating.  His breath, hot and musky, poured over me as he watched my 
hands relearn the feel of his body.

     People don't believe me when I say that Dragons, if they have any 
relation to other animals, are more like the centaurids than humanoids.  
But it must be so because Dragons have six limbs.  They have standing legs, 
flying wings, and holding arms, although in full Dracoform these arms end 
in three-fingered hands that require close care to keep the nails short 
enough for them to handle anything.

     My dreams and fantasies roiled in my head and I wondered how many of 
them I could fulfill in one night.  "If I touch you hear with my finger," I 
said, caressing the underside of his chin and neck, "and then do it again 
with my lips, do you feel anything different?"

     "Yes," he gasped.  "Your lips are strange... warmer, softer.  They're 
wet.  I feel that."

     "I do too."  As we lay side-by-side, I realized that describing him as 
eight feet tall is a misdirection.  He is only two feet taller than I, but 
all of that body is from his collar to his groin.  We were grossly 
disproportionate.  Yet I was determined to love him, to really take him for 
my own, for this night.

     "Would you like me to try a spell on you?" I asked.

     "Please," he whispered, brushing at my hair with one of his well- 
trimmed three-fingered hands.

     "Roll onto your back, Ryu."  He did as I said, and I crawled on top of 
his chest, sitting on him.  I closed my eyes and concentrated, calling 
forth the spell I knew better than anyone else.  I thought about the base, 
felt it settle in my body as I had envisioned it, mostly as if it were 
cradled within my hips.  I felt my erection grow, and I mouthed quietly the 
invocation.

     I opened my eyes and looked down at him.  His own eyes had widened and 
his breathing had become loud.  "Darynn..."  I turned around and what I saw 
made me smile.  His own cock had grown out of its hiding slit on his body 
and come to full length.  Looking at it, I breathed a sigh of relief.  Desa 
has spoken true; he was actually smaller than Thom, and by a good bit!  I 
was to learn that Dragons are not so largely blessed as Humans who, pound-
for-pound, have some of the largest sexes amongst mammals.

     The shape was different, as was the color.  Against his white hide, 
his cock was a brilliant, visible black.  The head was covered in wrinkles, 
but fortunately it was not barbed like a feline's.  I slid down his body, 
grateful that the simplest of my spells, "Stroke," had brought my prize out 
from concealment.  "Beautiful," I said, smiling up at him.  I took it in my 
hand and began to stoke it slowly, manually this time.  The skin on it was 
very loose and moved easily.  "May I kiss  it?"

     "Do... whatever... you want!"

     I looked up the long length of my Dragonfriend and smiled.  "I think I 
will do just that."  I lay on his body casually as I craned my neck forward 
and took the head of his cock into my mouth.

     He tasted like... it's hard to describe.  Perhaps the best idea I can 
think of is fresh paper.  After it has been milled, paper has a scent to it 
that carries for a while.  It was that kind of scent.

     But he tasted of flesh, and nothing more.  Nothing less, either, I 
might add.  I took more into my mouth, revelling in the control I exercised 
as I swallowed his cock whole.  It pulsed in the back of my throat.  I 
planted both hands against his sides and began to slide up and down, my 
eyes closed, my throat grasping for his cock.  He was beautiful, Aimee', 
and just to feel his sex down inside my throat was fulfillment of a dream.  
But not the dream.

     The size of a Dragon's sex was a blessing to me but it means nature 
was cruel to Dragons, for they mate in flight, and must be joined only 
briefly.  Unlike their young, Dragons climax quickly, violently, and, I 
will add, voluminously.  Ryu's back arched so strongly I was almost 
launched into the air as his cock pulsed long, thick jets of fluid into my 
mouth.  He roared so loud I was afraid the dome would crack.  I held on for 
dear life to his legs as he bucked.  I choked; unwisely, I had assumed that 
since I could take whatever Thom could feed me I could do the same for Ryu, 
but he had so much more than a human.

     "Darynn?" I recall him saying after his eruption had subsided.  "Are 
you well?"

     I gasped, coughed, hacked, and finally managed to say "I will live, 
Ryuchia."

     "That was not my question."

     "I was surprised.  I could not take all of your ejaculation.  I need a 
towel.  May I?"

     "If you need it, do not let me stop you from getting it.  Go!"

     I nodded and rose, still feeling a little dizzy, and recovered a 
towel.  I wiped myself off, and then returned to bed, still coughing into 
the towel at intervals.  I wiped Ryu off as well.

     I lay down next to him.  "I take it my spell worked?"

     "The spell was only the beginning!" Ryu replied, giving me a Dragon's 
smile.  Already his beard was coming in, and I tugged on it softly at the 
base of his broad muzzle.  "You were wonderful, Darynn."

     "All the benefits of good teachers.  And the best of friends."

     "You sound... sad, Darynn."

     I rested my head against his chest, listening.  "I... I miss Thomorr.  
I am not ashamed of that.  He loved me, and as a master he left nothing to 
be desired.  I'm afraid that here in Hakkana I am often viewed as the 
master myself, because of my skill and spell ability."

     "You need someone to... master you?" he asked, puzzled.

     I stroked his muzzle softly.  Appreciate how big he was, Aimee, when I 
tell you that his muzzle was as long as my palm and fingers, and as wide, 
and as thick as two hands stuck together.  "No," I said, shaking my head.  
"Not as I needed Thomorr, or as I wanted him."

     "Then... is there anything I can do for you, Darynn?"

     I thought about my needs, my desires, and my capacities.  I debated 
telling him the truth.  Thus far lying had availed me naught.  "Ryu, I need 
to taken.  Ravished.  I need... "  I paused for a second, then found the 
words I wanted.  "Ryuchitoran... would you sodomize me?"

     He chuckled softly; the sound reminded me that, although we both 
thought of ourselves as youths, this dragon was of the same age as my 
father.  "Yes, Darynn.  When I have recovered."

     I closed my eyes and concentrated, feeling the spell base for Pleasure 
return to me.  There were spells I knew for potency, recovery, and 
strength.  I whispered them quietly as I cuddled next to Ryu, and then 
followed them with the spell that had elicited an erection from him before.  
I felt his sex against my calf as I lay next to him.  "Are you recovered?"

     "You are so impatient, Darynn," he laughed.  "I am recovered.  How 
shall we do this?"

     I rose out of bed and walked into the next room, returning with the 
grease I used to make my self-penetrating rituals easier.  "With this," I 
said, slathering some along the length of his cock.  I stroked him with my 
hands, watching the white grease soak into the folds of his wrinkled skin 
and dissolve with the heat of his body.

     I lay down beside him, my back against his belly, and squirmed down 
until I felt his shaft against my buttocks.  I reached behind me and 
grabbed it, aiming for my anus.  It had been a long time since anyone had 
been within me, and I wasn't sure if entry of a living being would be as 
easy as I remembered, no matter how large my dildi.  That's one thing I've 
learned... wooden phalli are not even fair practice for the real thing.  I 
moved down further and pressed my buttocks back against his shaft.  I felt 
the ring of my anus part, spread open, as his cock eased into me.  I felt 
the head ease along the short anal canal and pop into me.  More moved 
within me; the sensation of it sliding past my hole was blissfully 
wrenching.  But I wanted more, Aimee'.  I didn't want gentleness.  The time 
for gentleness had passed.  I needed him to be brutal to me.

     "Darynn..." he gasped as the head of his cock slid deep into my guts.  
"Oh, Darynn!"

     "Yes, Ryu," I sighed.  "More..."

     "What... what more do you want?" he asked.

     I closed my eyes.  I had time for one more spell.  Just one more.  I 
began casting it, holding off on the last word of the spell.  I held that 
word in my heart, because I knew its power.  "Ryu... Roll us over, onto our 
bellies.  Lie atop me, and... take me."

     "Darynn... "

     "Be rough, Ryu.  Be a Dragon.  Take me.  Claim me."

     I felt something like anger flare within him as he pushed over.  As I 
fell face-first to the bed, he nearly came out, but only nearly.  Then he 
pushed himself into me again.  I felt his cock shove deeply into me, and I 
felt his hot hide against my buttocks and I knew he had all of himself 
within me.  A felt a rhythmic beating begin in the air about us and knew he 
had extended his wings.  I heard the bed creak as he withdrew his cock from 
my anus, and then pushed it back in.  He roared a challenge to me: "Is this 
what you want, Darynn?"

     His chest pushed my head against the mattress.  I could not answer, 
nor could I breath.  Nor did I care.  His body pounded against mine; the 
entire bed groaned under the beating weight of a Dragon in the grips of 
heated blood.  His shaft made a mockery of my claims to endurance, and I 
found myself gasping and loving him as he did so.  As he plundered me all 
the more, his wings took up more of his weight and I could again breath, my 
head swimming.  I could take no more, and he was straining.  I said the 
last word of the spell.

     It did not end!  Aimee', his loving did not end then!  He continued on 
for another full minute before finally roaring his climax, louder than 
before, stronger than before!  I never dreamed of what I had unleashed in 
Ryuchia as he loved me that night, Aimee'!  Unbelievable.

     He fell, literally fell, out of the air.  I barely rolled free of his 
falling weight.  He collapsed.  His breath came in panting, puffing 
intervals.  His eyes were shut tight.  "Oh, Darynn, oh, Darynn," he 
repeated over and over.

     I grabbed the towel we had been using and wiped my buttocks.  I was 
not suprised to find blood, but with a simple spell Thomorr had taught me I 
found that, as usual, I would survive and be well come the dawn.  "Ryu?"

     "Darynn!" he gasped.  "I've never... I cannot..."

     "Hush," I said, touching his chin again and kissing him on his beard.  
"You need to sleep."

     "I... Yes.  You do too."

     "May I sleep with you?" I asked.

     "You may not have much of a choice," he breathed.  "I am too tired to 
fly back to my bowl.  May I use your bed tonight?"

     "With my complete acceptance, beloved Ryuchitoran."

     "'Beloved.'  I like that.  Thank you."

     "Sleep, Ryu.  We will talk tomorrow."

     "Yes.  Yes, we will, Darynn."  He drifted off to sleep, and I joined 
him thereafter.


     Darynn looked up at the clock and swore softly.  "Aimee', my telling 
has taken far longer than I had planned, and we will have to finish this 
story some other day."  He looked at her closely.  She had removed all of 
her clothing but the tunic she had first so casually tried to doff.  She 
had removed her boots first, and now her pants and undergarments were gone 
as well.

     "Aimee'?  You have not removed your tunic?"

     "I... "  She looked up, confused.  "I did not know when I should.  
It..."  She began crying.  "I did not know..."  Tears began falling from 
her eyes.  Darynn pulled her to him and wrapped his arms around her fragile 
form.  "I'm sorry, sir.  I'm sorry."

     "You have done nothing wrong, Aimee'.  Do not apologize for lacking in 
harm."

     "But... you wanted me to be naked by now, didn't you?"

     "Aimee, if you had felt it wrong to take off even your boots, I would 
not have berated you.  You have done exactly as I asked, and there is 
nothing to be ashamed about in that."

     "Sir," she moaned pitifully.  "Teltirray wants to know when I will 
begin learning spells from you."

     "Next week," Darynn said calmly.  "I had planned to do some beginnings 
here, but we will start next week."  He held her close, feeling her warmth 
next to his.  He felt protective of her, an understandable reaction 
considering his feelings towards the man really "owned" her, contract or 
not.  "Now, tell me something.  You exposed all of yourself but your torso.  
Would you like me to guess as to why?"

     She looked up at him, tears running down her cheeks.  He caressed a 
small rivulet away.  She nodded.

     "Teltirray, your master, has taken everything from you.  You have no 
privacy in where you go, so your boots are no matter.  He takes your sex at 
his leisure, so your pants are no matter.  You learn what he wants you to 
learn, so your headcloth is of no matter.  But he has not got your heart, 
and you want that kept to yourself.  You wear your tunic as one would wear 
armor."

     She stared at his face, and then squeezed her eyes tight as her crying 
came, stronger than before. The tears told him he he had estimated her 
correctly.  He felt no victory at that.  She gathered the material of his 
robe in her fingers and gripped tightly.  He wrapped his arms around her, 
but she pushed away suddenly, grabbing at her tunic and pulling it off with 
an expression that could only have been a snarl, then looked at  him, 
smiling.

     He smiled back down at her, holding her as she placed her head against 
his shoulder and closed her eyes.  He knew what was happening.  She had 
decided that he, at least, should be allowed to know her heart, if only for 
the moment.  He thanked her silently for that.

     He drew a deep breath, regretting what must come next.  "Aimee', I 
cannot keep you here."

     "I know, sir.  I must return to Teltirray."

     "Are you afraid?"

     She looked up at him.  "You know, then.  You cannot protect me.  So I 
am not afraid.  I have nothing to fear.  What will happen, will happen."

     Darynn was stunned by the maturity with which she approached a dismal 
future.  "Aimee', you will return next week?"

     "With your permission, sir."

     "That you have."

     "Then I will return."  She stood up slowly.  "I guess I should dress 
now."

     "Yes," Darynn nodded.  He watched her as she pulled her clothing on, 
first her tunic, then her pants, and her headcloth and boots finally.  He 
found her truly beautiful in her youthfulness, and he feared that she 
wouldn't live long enough for him to teach her anything of use.  That would 
be a tragedy, and he would not allow it to happen.

     "Goodnight, sir."

     "Goodnight, Aimee'."  He waved as she closed the door behind herself.  
In his heart, resolution became real.  Teltirray would not have her 
forever.

     He was shocked at his own feelings.  Was he leaving the world of men 
behind, or was his own merely getting larger?  He had never had these 
feelings for a woman before, especially not one so immature as Aimee'.  

     Whatever their origin, they were his emotions and they were real.  He 
would do with them what he could.  He would teach Aimee'.  He sat down at 
his desk and began making notes.
 
--
"Aimee', Chapter 3"
Aimee' is copyright (c) 1993 Elf Mathieu Sternberg.  This story may be 
freely distributed by electronic media; hardcopies are limited to single 
printings for personal use.

Kristen's collection - Directory 4