Tales of the Apprentice 01 Ch. 09

"You could say that," Ayden said dryly. "Even a mundane could have felt your Release a mile away."

"Sorry about that," Galen said blandly as he helped himself to a slice of dark brown bread. "I suppose I got carried away a little. I know that supporting Serana with some of my Energy was part of the deal we made, but I guess it may have turned into a little bit more than that."

"I think you both needed it," Irya said.

"And if not, no harm done," Ayden added. "A little roll in the hay won't hurt either of you."

"It was quite a big one, actually," Serana muttered, her smile widening.

"It felt that way," Ayden agreed. "In fact, you look surprisingly fit, Galen."

Galen smiled as he took a bite.

"He does have a point," Irya said. "After expending as much Energy as you did, you should at least feel it this morning."

Galen sipped his tea and shook his head.

"I feel fine," he said. "I suppose it's those potions that Serana has been pouring into me for all this time."

Serana shook her head.

"Those tonics only help you physically," she said. "They don't have any effect on the levels of your sexual Energy, on how much of it you can expend, or on how long it will take to restore it to its former level afterward. And after what you poured into me last night... Irya is right, Galen. You should be feeling it."

Galen shrugged.

"Well, I'm not sure why, but I feel as good as ever. Better, actually."

Irya rose and walked around the table to where Galen sat. She reached out and put the fingers of both her hands on either side of his head.

"It appears he's right," she said. "His Energies are as strong as ever. There's no sign of any recent significant drain."

"But it was significant, believe me," Serana replied with a tastefully understated smile. "In fact..."

"In fact what?" Ayden inquired when she didn't finish her sentence.

"Don't mind me," Galen said dryly. "I'm just sitting here having breakfast."

"Well..." Serana said thoughtfully. "There was something... I'm not sure what it was. Inside me..."

She glanced at Galen, who nodded.

"I appreciate your trying to be delicate, Serana," he said. "And a few months ago it would have bothered me. But after the past few weeks I think we've all gotten to know each other well enough."

Irya nodded in agreement.

"He's right, Serana. Let's have it."

"Alright," Serana said. "When Galen was inside me, I felt some kind of... discharge."

"I think we both sort of expected that to happen sooner or later," Galen said dryly.

"I don't mean your ejaculation, Galen," she replied. "I mean there was some form of Energetic discharge. Other than your Release during orgasm, I mean. It felt like sparks going off deep inside me. And you really were deep inside me last night."

"Alright," Galen admitted wryly. "I guess it still does bother me a little to discuss it in that much detail. Having said that, though, I'm not sure what you mean. Don't get me wrong; last night was great. But I don't think anything strange happened. Not in the way you describe it, at least. I didn't notice anything like that."

Irya looked at him with a thoughtful expression on her face. Ayden glanced at her and nodded.

"You're the best one to find out," he told her. "You're the one with the most empathy."

"Find out what?" Galen asked.

"You discharged a lot of Energy last night," Ayden replied. "That should have had an effect on you. In the past it always has, as I'm sure you'll remember."

Galen nodded thoughtfully.

"Well... If you put that way..."

"Yes. There's something going on here that we need to understand. Either you have suddenly turned into a superman..."

"Unlikely," Galen interjected with a smile.

"Or your Energies have been restoring themselves in a way they shouldn't. Unless..."

"Unless what?"

Ayden looked thoughtful.

"Let's have a look first before we speculate," he said slowly.

"Alright," Galen said. "What do you have in mind?"

Ayden chuckled.

"Not me. Irya. You're going to take her to bed and wear her out."

"No, I'm going to wear him out," Irya corrected.

"Right now?" Galen asked.

"As soon as you finish breakfast and have a bath," she replied.

"Have you taken your tonic this morning?" Serana asked.

"Not yet."

She thought for a moment, then she glanced at Irya, who nodded.

"Skip it this morning," she said. "Let's see how you perform without it."

Ayden grin spoke volumes.

"No pressure, then," he said. "Brace yourself, lad."

"Thanks awfully," Galen muttered.

* * *

"Well, Galen," Irya said softly. "I guess it's you and me again."

The bedroom was lit by a single candle. She had closed the door and shuttered the window, but the bright light of day still shone through the cracks. It was strange, Galen thought, to be in a darkened and candle-lit room at mid-morning. But then, what meaning did strangeness still have in his life? Everything he did now would have been completely unbelievable two years ago. And even that was nothing compared to what he was trying to get ready for. Demons? Ridiculous! Suddenly he was completely overcome with the sheer lunacy of it all.

She must have seen something on his face, something in his eyes, because she reached out, touched his cheek until he looked at her, and she smiled reassuringly.

"You'll do fine," she said. "You have the strength, and you have the gift. But most of all you have the right attitude. None of that can be taught or learned, Galen. One either has it, or not. And you do. You'll be alright."

He looked at her, and the doubts that had been haunting him for so long suddenly rose within him like the Energies had done so many times before. He sat down hard on the edge of the bed, feeling depressed and overwhelmed.

"Sure," he scoffed. "Everything will be just fine. Cometh the hour, cometh the man. Me, against an uncounted horde of demons, flaming sword in hand. And that's going to work out perfectly. Of course it will. What could possibly go wrong?"

She knelt before him and took his hands in hers.

"No, Galen," she said. "It won't be you against them. We've tried to explain that to you before. At most you will act as a conduit for the power of a large number of mages, possibly just about every mage in the world. And it's true: that won't be easy. But you won't be fighting any demons, and certainly not on your own. In fact, the whole idea is to make sure nobody has to fight any demons in the first place. We must close the portal, or even better, prevent it from being opened. And nobody expects you to do that all by yourself. You'll merely act as a focal point for the Energies of others."

"And if I fail?"

Irya smiled softly and squeezed his hands. He felt her strength flowing into him. He was grateful for the way she tried to help him. Yet his doubts remained.

"I don't think you will fail," she whispered.

"But what if I do?"

"Galen," she said firmly. "There are two kinds of people in this world. There are those who spend their entire lives asking themselves 'What if?' until they die with nothing accomplished at all, just because they fear that something may go wrong if they try anything. And then there are those who just do what needs to be done, as best they can, and take it from there. Which kind of person do you want to be? Choose one. Because you can't have it both ways."

He sighed. She was right. It was inescapable, and he knew it. He smiled ruefully.

"Are you sure you're not related to Serana in any way?" he asked. "You sound just like she does."

"We are kin, but only in spirit," she replied. "I suppose it comes from having been a mage for such a long time. As time goes by one gets used to the inevitability of things. Man may think he rules the world, Galen, but in reality the world rules itself, and Man is just a part of it all, nothing more."

"That sounds depressing."

"Not at all," she disagreed. "It's the way it should be. It's the only way it can be. And finding happiness in it is as simple as accepting it. So many people spend their lives fighting the inevitable, and of course that's a battle they must lose. But accepting our role in the greater scheme of things rather than trying to resist it means that we can only win."

"If you can't beat it, join it, you mean?"

She shook her head.

"No. That is simply another way of saying we should always pick the easy way out, and I don't think you agree with that any more than I do. What I am trying to say is... Look, I'm sure Serana has spoken of the Great Mother many times. What you may or may not understand at this point is that the Great Mother is not only in all of us; she really is all of us. She is you, and me, and we are part of Her. I know that's not an easy thing to grasp. But once you do, once you fully understand what that means, your life will have meaning and fulfillment and you can't help being happy. That doesn't mean that life will be one big bowl of cherries, of course. You will still know grief and worry and loss at certain times. That's all part of it. But understanding how we are all part of the Great Mother, and how we are nothing but manifestations of Her, will make even those difficult times easier to deal with, and in the end the good will definitely outweigh the bad, by a lot."

"You know, Irya, you would have a made a great prophet. Or a priestess."

"No, Galen. I'm not talking about religion here. The gods are invisible, unknowable, and they only do what people think they do, because the gods exist only in our minds. But the Great Mother is all around us. She's part of us. She's the world in which we live. She gave birth to us, she supports us, she nurtures us. But I don't have to tell you any of that, do I? You know it already. You have seen it. In fact, you've met Her, in a way."

"I... suppose I have, yes," he admitted.

"Then you know it's true," she said softly.

"But no less scary."

"We're all scared, now and then," she said calmly. "And that's alright. As long as we still do what we have to do."

He nodded slowly, took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She was right, of course. And he had made his choice. He'd made it quite a while ago. Now all he had to do was to see it through.

"Speaking of things to be done..." he began.

She smiled.

"We've all told you that there are some rewards as well. Maybe this can be one of them."

Still kneeling in front of him, she reached up and began to remove his tunic. He smiled and helped her. Then he stood, and she unfastened his hose and let it drop to the floor. He stepped out of it and moved it aside with his foot. Finally he unwrapped his breechcloth.

She smiled as its contents were revealed to her, right there before her eyes. Galen felt that she was genuinely pleased with what she saw, even though she had seen it all before. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps there were rewards for what they did, and perhaps this was indeed one of them.

She leaned forward and lightly kissed the shaft of his flaccid cock, and the way her soft lips gently brushed across the skin was a promise of more to come. She looked up and he held out his hand to help her up. When she stood before him she took the hem of her dress in both hands and lifted it off her in one smooth movement. As usual, she wore nothing underneath. This time it was his turn to smile and be genuinely pleased with what he saw.

"Right. To business, then," he chuckled.

Still smiling, she nodded and gently pushed him backward until he felt the bed touch the back of his legs. Their eyes met, and he understood what she wanted him to do. He sat down on the bed, then lay down on his back, his feet still on the floor. She knelt at his feet, bent down and kissed his flaccid cock once more. Galen smiled as he realized she was about to make good on the promise her earlier kiss had given him.

Lying on his back he couldn't see what she was doing, but he felt her lips nuzzle the base of his shaft, then move down to his balls. The tip of her tongue tickled a little, and he giggled. Then she lifted his cock and held it as her tongue played across he underside of it. He felt it begin to stir under her caresses. She must have felt it, too, because she carefully and gently pulled his foreskin back to expose the head. Her tongue touched the most sensitive part of him, and he began to swell and harden in her hand.

"It's a good thing you're not circumcised," she told him. "It's such a strange custom, you know. I've never understood it. Circumcised men have no idea how much sensitivity they're losing that way."

"Serana said pretty much the same thing, as I remember," Galen said.

"Serana has good sense," she agreed.

As if to prove her point, she gently pulled down the skin around his hardening shaft and began to lick around it, just behind the head, and the feeling of her tongue playing across that sensitive band of exposed skin was downright incredible. Within moments his cock stood up hard and proud in her hand. But she wasn't done with him yet.

Her tongue continued to work its magic while her fingers caressed his balls. Then he felt her lips, warm and slick and wet, touch the tip of his cock. She gently pushed down until the head of his cock slipped into her mouth. She held him there for a long moment, her lips clasping him behind the crown, and he felt the tip of her tongue play across that magic spot at the underside of the head. With her hands she stroked his shaft and his balls, and then she began to suck. Great Mother, it felt good!

She continued to lick him, suck him, stroke him, caress him, and her head bobbed up and down as her lush, wet lips slid back and forth across the most sensitive part of his shaft, the crown, the head... And the way she sucked him was absolutely amazing. He thought he knew pleasure, and she had given him much pleasure before, but there was something new about what she was doing to him right now. What else did she know, Galen wondered, and what new delights had she yet to reveal to him?

But these thoughts gave way to a more pressing concern: he realized that he would lose control before long, if she kept this up. He felt the familiar pressure begin to rise in his groin and pool at the base of his cock, and he did whatever he could to hold it back, but without much success. She must have sensed it too, because after a few more long and delightful moments she let him slip out of her mouth and sat up, looked down upon her handiwork as it stood before her, nodding at her with every beat of his heart, and she smiled.

"Don't worry about your Energies for now," she said. "Don't try to control anything and don't hold back. Just enjoy it and let it happen naturally."

His cock was hot and hard as steel in her hands, and his balls were tight under her touch. When he felt her lips slide down around the head again he shivered with the sensations that she sent through him. She held his rigid shaft tenderly but firmly, and he felt himself grow even harder as her lips and tongue caressed his most sensitive places. And the way her fingertips touched his balls... Great Mother, she was amazing!

Her head bobbed up and down as she urged him onward, and her lips slid back and forth across the crown of his cock-head, back and forth, back and forth, and with each slow, loving stroke the slick, wet caresses of her mouth felt better and better... He felt himself begin to swell up in her mouth as the pressure withing him built faster and faster. She read his body like a book, because she subtly altered the speed and pressure with which her lips and tongue caressed the head of his cock, and it felt so good, so good, and it was as if his cock vibrated with pent-up sexual pleasure waiting to be released. Suddenly he felt his body begin to grow tense as the pressure within it began to rush toward his groin.

His arousal built and built, then suddenly peaked, and a tidal wave of pleasure rushed from his groin into his straining cock, pooled in the engorged head... and exploded.

His muscles grew taut as cables. It was as if sparks of pure orgasmic energy burst out from the head of his cock to fill her mouth with stars, and his entire body shook with the force of it. His cock pulsed, and again, and again. She held him in her hand as he pumped spurt after hot thick spurt into her mouth, and he felt her swallow in a valiant attempt to contain the flood. He shuddered with the force of it, and bright lights flashed before his eyes as he filled her mouth to overflowing.

It was a while before he opened his eyes and saw her sitting up, looking down on him, a small white rivulet running down her chin.

"Interesting," she said thoughtfully.

He felt a lazy, happy grin creep across his face.

"Interesting doesn't even begin to describe it," he said. "That was amazing."

"Thank you. It's good to know I can still do it. But that wasn't what I meant. After what I felt coming from you and Serana last night, you should have been... Well, dry, mostly. But instead..."

She smiled and wiped her chin.

"And you were quite big and hard, too," she continued. "The way you'd have been after a prolonged period of abstinence. And before you ask, I don't think it has all that much to do with Serana's tonics. She's quite good at herbal remedies and they've helped you a lot at first, but I don't think you still need them as much anymore."

"But how..." he began.

"I'm not sure yet. So let's find out."

She sat on her knees on the bed and crept forward, then put one leg across him. He reached out and she took his hands to stabilize herself as she carefully adjusted her position, until she straddled his face.

Yes, she had been right, he realized once again. There were indeed rewards. He deeply inhaled her scent, and the intoxicating fragrance filled his nostrils. Then he lifted his face to touch his lips to the lovely pink folds that waited for him there between her spread thighs, and she made a small sound when she felt him there.

He gently nuzzled her most intimate folds, feeling their silky-soft warmth with every light kiss he put on them. Then he stuck out the tip of his tongue and licked her there, ever so carefully, and he felt her move above him in response.

He put his hands on her hips, then moved them to her shapely rear. The round curves, smooth and soft yet firm, filled the palms of his hands to overflowing. He gently pulled her closer to him, and she lowered herself a little further to increase the contact between his mouth and her nether lips. With his tongue he gently parted those lovely soft folds, and their insides were as smooth as silk as he licked her there, slowly and lovingly. Then the tip of his tongue found her opening and gently dipped into it. The taste of her was heavenly.

When he glanced up, he saw that she had her eyes closed and her hands on her breasts, rubbing her nipples with her fingertips. They were already visibly swollen and hardened, and as he watched she gently pinched those sensitive nubs to enhance her own pleasure.

He explored her entrance with his tongue, and her nether lips flowered open as he did so. Within her he could taste the first of her nectar, and he felt her inner heat radiate against his face. He licked her softly, gently, making love to her pussy with his lips and tongue, and with every slow, long swipe she got a little wetter until her nectar, thick and sweet and smooth and velvety, began to fill his mouth.

He licked her a little higher, reaching for her pleasure button, and when he found it there, ready and waiting, she shuddered as he touched it. It felt taut and hard against the tip of his tongue, and he caressed it in small circles. He felt the muscles in her thighs twitch on either side of his face, and her breathing deepened. The lips of her pussy were wet against his chin.