105: A Map

Ryn’s Perspective

I followed Grace into our room and kicked the door closed behind us. As if we were connected on some subliminal level, she turned and enfolded me with her soft, strong arms. Her cheek came to rest on the top of my head, and my hands immediately snuck under her shirt to get better contact with her warm skin.

I swear the weeks or so that we'd spent needing to siphon energy out of her with skin contact had conditioned me to seek it from her even afterwards. Her skin was always so soft and warm, like living velvet. I couldn't get enough.

"Oh, Ryn…" she whispered, her arms closing tighter around me. "Oh, Ryn."

Humming in quiet, tired agreement, I nuzzled my face into the soft spot between her shoulder and chest. I needed this so bad. Her touch was… everything. Nothing else in my life came close to it in importance.

No, that was a lie. There was something far more important than even that. Her happiness. Her smile. That was the absolute most important thing in this universe to me.

She made my heart spark and pop like I'd just swallowed a mouth full of pop rocks. It was hard to function at times like this, when the emotions were so overwhelming that they consumed my thoughts entirely.

"Grace?" I asked, almost drowsy with love for her.

She shifted against me, one hand stroking up and down my spine. "Yeah?"

"Your happiness is everything to me," I whispered. "Everything."

Her arms pulled tighter around me, and she asked, “Can we get in bed? I want to cuddle you.”

“Yes.” Cuddles sounded fucking amazing.

We had by now developed a favourite cuddling position, and we snuggled up together like that under the covers. Grace lay on her back, while I was on my side, front pressed up against her and my head on her bicep.

It was so comfortable that we often slept like this, legs all tangled together, whispering increasingly tired and nonsensical thoughts to each other.

Tonight though, I wanted to really drink in the intimacy between us. I didn't want to fall asleep immediately and miss out on some premium bliss.

"God, what a day," she groaned, using her long fingers to play with my hair.

"Yeah, you can say that again," 

“We say that every night,” I replied, suddenly too exhausted to put any emotion into my voice.

She snorted. “Because it’s true every night.”

I couldn’t help but laugh, because it was painfully true. I had to say though… all her training was paying off. Her arms were artfully muscled now, even more so than before. Except it seemed no matter what she did, she still looked like the picture of stereotypical feminine beauty. Was Ollinfer a goddess of war and love, as well as verdant growth? That was the only explanation I could find for the way her muscles were developing.

Then, obviously, there was everything about her that was the same. Her vibrant green eyes watching me with so much lazy affection. Her face, perfected from her time in the flower.

“Falling in love with you was kinda fun,” I said, almost blurting it before my brain could really figure out how it had arrived at that conclusion.

Grace gave me a look, her hand stilling in my hair. “How so?”

“So much yearning,” I smiled, kissing the underside of her chin. “Oh and the part where we had to keep touching or you’d explode. That was really fun too.”

“Fun is one way to put it,” she groaned, placing an arm over her eyes even as her lips tweaked into a smile.

“You have to admit it was exciting,” I teased, mimicking one of my moves from during that time. I slid my hand under her shirt and trailed my fingertips across her delicious abs. God, they were so good. I’d seen her taking a dip in the lake a few days ago after training and… yum.

Her breath caught as I tickled the underside of her breasts, and she pulled her arm away to meet my eyes. “You’re fucking cheeky, you know that? I think the part I enjoyed the most was when we were able to connect emotionally… just… feeling your affection for me. It healed me, healed my broken, scarred heart, you know?”

“Like this, you mean?” I asked, allowing just the slightest of my plant form out.

I’d gained a lot of control over it recently, so it was only my hair and vines that sprouted. They twirled and crawled around and over my arm to cup her waist. This was a two way street, though, and she smiled, letting a little of her own dryad form to manifest.

Her shoulder length hair became threaded with grass and leaves, while her shoulders received a scattering of bark like soft, raised freckles. It was a super pretty look, but it also wasn’t what I was focused on at that moment.

She was there in my mind, a warm glow made of eager, cautious emotion. There were no words, this wasn’t anything like telepathy. Instead, it was empathy. A gentle embrace of the mind, stripped bare of any erratic, noisy internal monologue.

“M-mmmm,” Grace sighed, low and happy, her arms encircling me and pulling me closer. “Exactly like that.”

Her hands trailed up and down my back, then suddenly she made a noise of frustration and pulled back. “Can you take your shirt off?”

I laughed, but did as she requested, temporarily severing the emotional communion in order to pull my comfortable T-shirt over my head. I didn’t sleep with a bra on, like ever, so I was topless now.

Watching her drink in my feminine body was… it was a shock of gender euphoria straight to my brain. I felt a blush coming on, but I couldn’t stop gazing into her roving eyes, watching her pupils widen and widen as they thirsted for the light that bounced off my body.

She stopped when she noticed something down near my waist. Leaning sideways, she asked, “Wow, is that your tattoos? How have I not noticed them? They’re huge now.”

“Wait, they are?” I blinked, twisting to try and see. That was obviously a fruitless endeavor, but I had magic for a reason. That reason being primarily to admire my own back, obviously.

Summoning a little mirror viewing spell thingy, I gave a gasp when I saw it. Grace’s sharp intake of breath told me she was seeing the same thing.

Simple, abstract floral patterns started down near my butt, like roots framing the gentle curves there. They narrowed as they climbed, following my spine up and up, tendrils knotting together into a tree trunk that then burst into bloom as they reached my ribcage. From then on, it was a riot of black, twirling lines and shining magenta flowers, with the top of it spreading slightly to cradle the base of my neck.

“God damn,” Grace whispered reverently, her fingers trailing over the patterns. I watched her do it in the mirror while a million different half-formed thoughts crashed together like bumper cars in my mind.

Tattoos had never really been a thing I thought about, but seeing mine… it did things for me. They were elegant, feminine, and so pretty. I could see how it vaguely represented how my grove was laid out too, which was cute.

“Wow, that’s… I need to find some backless dresses, huh?” I asked, feeling a little giddy. There was no other way to describe seeing your own absolutely fucking gorgeous back tattoos. I was giddy with happiness and… well, a lot of other emotions besides.

“Hell yes,” she said, leaning forward to put her head on my shoulder. It blocked my view of the recently discovered artwork, so I swapped the spell to a normal mirror so I could see my girlfriend in it.

She smiled at me when it flicked into place, then circled her arms around me and cuddled closer so her chest was snug against my back. “We’ve gone a long way from batronaught jokes, huh?”

“Yeah,” I sighed, leaning back into her strong, soft frame. My vines wrapped up and around to return the embrace, binding our emotions together again.

The love she was feeling for me blew me away. It was so strong, so open and trusting. As she tasted mine in turn, it flared like a stoked forge, burning bright in my mind’s eye.

“Feeling how much you love me…” she whispered, voice choked with emotion. “I can’t even… it’s…”

“It’s okay,” I murmured soothingly, reaching down to thread our fingers together. “You don’t need to talk about it.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head slightly against mine. “I want to tell you.”

I waited patiently, watching her in the mirror as she visibly ordered her thoughts. Internally, she was a mess of stagnant pain and stale heartache.

"I started dating when I was about fourteen," she told me quietly. "I dated two boys before I realised at age fifteen that I just wasn't interested. Heteronormativity is a bitch. Anyway uh… it took until I was like seventeen before I found myself with another girl."

Confusion and pain without closure bubbled up from her heart, and I used a budding flower from my hair to tentatively caress her cheek in sympathy.

"We danced around each other for months, never official but obviously more than friends," she said, closing her eyes and leaning slightly into my touch. "One day we finally took the leap. We agreed to date. Three days later, she ghosted me without warning or explanation. Just gone, poof. None of our mutual friends would tell me anything."

Well, that explained the pain-sans-closure I'd felt from her. "Silly girl," I replied mildly. "Her loss is my gain."

Her answering smile was just as radiant as the love in her heart. "Thanks. After her, I met another girl really quickly. We hit it off as friends, then almost immediately things went further. Except, turns out she was just a little curious, and one day she suddenly announced on Facebook that she was dating one of our mutual guy friends."

"It went on like that," she continued, scrunching her eyes shut against the memories. "The best of them being a cute bi girl who I still remember somewhat fondly. By that time, though, my heart was a mess. My insecurities and trust issues poisoned the relationship. We're still friends… I think. She's back on Earth. I guess it doesn't matter anymore, I'll probably never see her again."

Turning my head, I pressed a kiss to her neck and tried to throw as much love and affection at her as I possibly could. No wonder she's been so hesitant with me.

"I can see why this emotional communion is so important to you," I murmured, nuzzling at her neck with my lips. "I hope you can feel how much you mean to me."

"I can," she smiled, leaning into the attention I was giving her. "Thank you so much."

"I love you," I told her, as though she couldn't feel it.

She whispered her reply into my ear, too overwhelmed to add more volume, "I love you, too."

Shifting, I turned around until I was facing her, and gazed directly into her wonderful green eyes. I'd intended to kiss her, but the eye contact became heavy, spurred on by the exchange of emotion between us.

We stayed like that for a long time, stuck in a blissful trace. I had never felt anything like this. The awareness that another whole, glorious mind was right there, it robbed me of my thoughts. The fact that Grace loved me… it was never more apparent, more tangible than right then.

"We're going to be together forever," she croaked, voice thick with emotion.

"Beyond the heat death of the universe," I agreed, although the words were barely a breeze from my lips. It was hard to make any real sound with my heart so full of love.

One thing was for sure, though. I wasn't tired anymore.

Grace must have felt the little spark of lust that sprouted within me, because she smiled and said, "Not tired after that, huh?"

"I've gained a bit of a second wind," I agreed, and leaned in to press our lips together.

QuietValerie