A Lady of Neverwinter

Daylight filters through her window in pale filaments across her eyes. She wakes with a low groan, her ears ringing with the sound of her own pulse. Awareness returns to her in a flood of sensation.

The air is hot and musty with lingering scents of wine and sweat. Aribeth half-expects to wake in her own bed--a simple, spartan thing in her quarters underneath a familiar quilt and her own pillows--and so she is momentarily disoriented, finding herself with a blanket of scarlet velvet brushing along her naked flesh. Her skin is inexplicably cool in the air, and her body sore in places, an unfamiliar but pleasant ache between her long legs.

Aribeth closes her eyes and exhales to steady herself before a soft hand brushes along her thigh beneath the blankets. Her eyes snap open to gaze at Sharwyn's smirking face.

"Ah," Sharwyn murmurs, her half-lidded eyes sweeping across Aribeth's form, the way the paladin wraps herself in the blanket, its scarlet folds draping down the curves of her generous breasts, "good morning, Lady Paladin. Mmm, judging by that incredulous look on your face," she says, her hand snaking along Aribeth's trim stomach to wrap around her waist, "you've slept especially well."

Behind Sharwyn sleeps the form of one especially lucky young man, one arm hanging over the side of the bed. The blanket drapes over his waist, revealing the taut definition of his abdomen, his finely toned chest and shoulders.

All at once the memories of last night repair themselves.

"Oh, Tyr," she murmurs, her eyes looking away across the bedroom, a suite on the second floor of the Moonstone Mask, presently a mess of an overturned chair, a table at its side, a few bottles of wine scattered near a couch, "this cannot be happening to me."

Sharwyn laughs, and Aribeth feels her shapely form rest against her own, curves fitting curves.

"But it did," Sharwyn purrs, kissing along the elf's long throat. Aribeth finds herself gasping, the familiar sensations of Sharwyn's lips against her throat conjuring vivid flashes of the prior night.

****

Aribeth reclined in her bath, her chestnut-brown hair spilling down into the swirling water. She bathed with slow deliberation, luxuriating in the sensations of steaming hot water lapping along the heavy curves of her chest, immersed to her shoulders. She washed herself with soaps fragrant of lavender and peppermint, admiring in a moment of indulgence the qualities of her own body, the way she imagined Fenthick would admire her tonight.

She had long legs, elegant with dainty, pink-soled feet; her arms were shapely, hints of her well-toned musculature suggested underneath that polished smooth skin, fair of complexion. Aribeth rarely indulged in these vanities, this kind of narcissism antithetical to the behavior of proper paladins, who were expected to be beautiful in a pious way, the way the halls of the temple were beautiful: inspiring awe, never lust. But that was her public face. In private, Aribeth was a woman as much as she was a paladin, and during her nights with Fenthick, rare as they may be, she allowed her hair down, allowed herself to feel sexy.

Her hand slipped along the smooth curves of full breasts, pressed adorably together between her arms to accent the depth of her cleavage. She knew that she looked good, and underneath the contours of her plate armor, Aribeth was an alluring specimen of elf. She brushed her fingers along her taut abdomen, imagining Fenthick's hand in place of her own. Her fingertips circled around the slope of her mound between her thighs, massaging softly along the cleft of her sex, small and chaste, her pink labia closed and tight.

"Oh, Fenthick," she murmured, closing her eyes and dipping her fingers inside.

When her bath was done, Aribeth rose from her tub, water streaming down the contours of her elegant form, her hair clinging to her neck and shoulders. Her senses were still reeling from the pleasure of a small climax, a small appetizer in anticipation of her lover. She dried herself and applied a scented oil to her body, giving her complexion a faint sheen that glinted the light of candles arranged around her bath. She wore a long, black robe of silk, tied at her waist, its fabric draped across her front to reveal the upper slopes of heavy breasts pushed together, the length of her deep cleavage.

Her bedroom was empty. Outside her gauzy curtains, the sky had grown red with sunset and cast a long, orange bar of light across her bed. She sighed and reclined on her bed. He'd promised to meet her by sundown. "No delays this time, beloved," he'd said, "just you and I. Sundown. I swear it." She stared up at the roof of her bedroom, the flickering light cast across its surface by the sconces at her wall.

Aribeth sighed. She waited. The sky grew darker, and gradually the stream of light across her bed receded into a meek strip below her window. She rose; she lounged on her couch, swaying her ankle. She had a cup of water. Aribeth found herself making excuses for him more and more often these days. Tonight was the third night he'd let her down, and after lounging on her couch with her hands across her stomach, rehearsing in her mind the way she'd greet him--an icy stare across the length of her bedroom, bashful smiles from him and perhaps a bouquet of roses from the Lord's Gardens, some murmured apologies between tenuous kisses after which she would, with his arms around her waist and the heat of their breath mingling, forgive his tardiness--she grew sick of waiting. Hope became concern became annoyance became anger.

Aribeth approached her window and flung open its shutters. She'd give him one last chance, one opportunity to be there when she looked down toward the roads below her balcony. Nothing. A few guards in the tabards of Neverwinter, swords at their hips; some well-dressed merchant riding past the building, but no sign at all of a panicked Fenthick rushing on foot toward her door with flower petals trailing from the bouquet crushed under his arm.

So be it, then, she thought. She stripped off her robe with militant efficiency, flung it on her bed and changed into something more presentable to the public. It wasn't that he'd kept her waiting. Aribeth believed powerfully in the virtue of patience, one that he admittedly tested on nights like these. Rather, she reflected as she threw on a low-cut shirt of black and midnight blue above a dress that flowed past her long legs, he had embarrassed her. She lay about on her bed like some blushing, lovestruck maiden waiting for her paramour to fling open her bedroom door with a rose between his teeth.

Fenthick had made her feel like a fool. She was not inclined to forgive him.

Aribeth left her bedroom and traveled swiftly down a long flight of stairs that lead into the building's foyer, where she encountered a surprise handmaid mopping at the floors.

"My lady?" she asked, in a voice that mixed surprise and sympathy.

Aribeth sighed. "I am going out for the evening."

The handmaid frowned. "I am sure Master Fenthick is caught up in his duties at the temple. I am sure he did not mean--"

"--Not a word about Fenthick," Aribeth said, articulating his name with a small hiss in her dulcet voice, "if you please." The handmaid winced and nodded in solemn understanding, and Aribeth sighed again. She combed her hand through her chestnut tresses, freshly washed, oiled and scented. "If he comes for me," said Aribeth, her dress whisking past the polished ground as she went for the door, "tell him I am incredibly disappointed in him."

She slammed the door behind her.

The city of Neverwinter spread out before her in a landscape of rooftops and roadways, bright steeples that rose from a canopy of sloped brick roofs the same reddish color of the perpetual glow enveloping the city.

Aribeth was not often seen without her scalloped plate armor and a sword at her hip. She wove through the traffic of crowds, past the rattle of horse-drawn carts, past roadside eateries and around leering clusters of rough-looking men who paused to watch the svelte form of this elegant elf walking unescorted. Here she felt a degree of comfortable anonymity, not Lady Aribeth de Tylmarande but an elf of the city in expensive looking garments, with a proud, uplifted chin and a stern look on her face.

She didn't know where she was going. Aribeth walked on pure impulse, brooding silently as she did, without any plan or intention more specific than getting away from her bedroom. She ignored her share of cat calls and whistles, walking on until her subconscious had led her before the doors of the Moonstone Mask.

***

Sharwyn reclined against Damon's form, a smile on her lips. She and the young guard had formed something of a casual relationship, seeing one another now and then when he was off duty and she sufficiently bored. He was a good lover, energetic and tireless, only a year or two younger than she, with wheat colored hair and green eyes, a wry smile, and a deliciously muscled physique consequent of his diligent training. Tonight they lay across a cushioned divan in the Moonstone Mask, her shapely figure resting across his chest, his arms around her waist. Now and then they sipped together from a broad bronze saucer filled with a spiced wine.

All around them, the Moonstone Mask thrummed with a constant, languid hedonism. Men and women lay and laughed in each other's arms, indulging one another in a coquettish stroking and petting that never quite devolved into foreplay: there were private rooms for that. Wine poured into great bowls, spiced with a mild narcotic that excited one's senses, and sweet-smelling camphor drifted from censers in long, thin tendrils of smoke.

Sharwyn dragged her hand down his hard chest, along his abdomen, lingering just above the V of Damon's hips. Her scarlet hair lay across his neck and shoulder, and her heavy breasts rose and fell beneath her top: a low-cut velvet vest that exposed her taut midriff. He groaned as the bard felt around here, her fingers dancing along his pelvis. She could feel the young guard slowly stiffen along her fingertips, that magnificently impressive girth, thick and smooth. Her hips shivered, her body remembering the sensations of feeling that length inside of her, the hot, slick grinding and bucking of their hips.

"Damon," she purred.

"Mmm?"

"Isn't that your captain over there, sitting by herself at the bar and looking quite sullen?"

"My captain?" Damon sat up against his elbows, gazing over his shoulders.

"Yes," Sharwyn smiled. Her hand dipped invisibly between their bodies to stroke one finger along the swell of his semi-soft length, feeling that pulse of pleasure. "Your captain. The lady to whom you answer. You described her once to me: elven and beautiful, with exquisite hair and an equally lovely figure. I was jealous."

Damon gasped at her touch, but absently, much too distracted by the sight of her. There she was: Lady Aribeth de Tylmarande, seated by the bar and ignoring with her usual stoic disinterest the vapid approaches of some yammering patron. Her cheek resting against her palm, a sadness in her eyes, but it was unmistakably her. Damon recognized that face, that elegant figure strangely devoid of armor.

"What's she doing here?" He murmured, pressing his hands against Sharwyn's shoulder. Sharwyn glanced up to see his expression, and a wicked smile spread on her lovely face.

"Let's find out, shall we?"

Sharwyn and Damon insinuated themselves beside Aribeth, the two of them on either side of her, casually. Aribeth frowned in surprise upon seeing him. He had a fresh look about him, as if having woken from a pleasant nap, his shirt half-buttoned and his gold hair falling in soft waves past his face. She'd never seen him outside of his uniform, which always fit him quite sharply, but tonight he seemed strangely alluring. When he gestured to Sharwyn, Aribeth's eyes met her. She offered a small, wary smile at the gorgeous redhead leaning against the bar, dressed in that scandalous vest and that low-hanging dress slit along the side to reveal her long, slender leg. They both smelled pleasantly of a rich vintage of wine.

"So, you're Aribeth," Sharwyn murmured, lifting her chin up to gaze down at the elf through her half-lidded eyes.

"Lady Aribeth," Damon interjected, pouring the three of them wine from a broad-lipped pitcher into tall goblets. Aribeth felt suddenly surrounded, with a full goblet of wine presented before her and the presence of this company, that air of sensuality around them. But she couldn't just brush Damon off, and the woman who seemed to be his date tonight was--she admitted, with some personal hesitation--remarkably beautiful.

"Damon please. I'm not drinking tonight," Aribeth said. Sharwyn laughed at this, a long, mellifluous peal of laughter. Eventually, she rested her long-fingered hand against the paladin's shoulder.

"No? So you've come to the Moonstone Mask for the music, perhaps?" Sharwyn said, a hint of playful sarcasm in her voice. Aribeth rolled her eyes. She made a gesture with her hands against the counter as if bracing herself to stand.

"This was a mistake," Aribeth murmured, more to herself than to her company.

"Wait." Damon slipped closer beside her. "It's good to see you here, Lady Tylmarande. Outside your uniform, I mean. I'd wanted to buy you a drink for some time now, you know," he said, exchanging knowing glances with a smirking Sharwyn, "and here you are."

Aribeth paused. She raised a single, slender brow at him, then gazed at Sharwyn. Fenthick had never taken her out for a drink. That may have had something to do with her aversion to alcohol, drinking very modestly, and even then, when the situation called for small celebrations: festival nights, for example. After a few moments of expectant silence, Aribeth smiled.

"Alright," she said, her hand curling around the goblet of wine. "I'd not want to let you down, Damon." She took a sip, and Sharwyn smiled victoriously. The drink felt hot in her throat. Hot and good. Its ingredients were perfect, a blend of a heady wine and some exotic spices that seemed to open her senses into full blossom. It wasn't long before her company seemed twice as lovely. Aribeth smiled. "So, you must be Damon's lover," she said to Sharwyn.

The redhead laughed again. Her hand brushed along Aribeth's arm. "Occasionally. He is rather talented, lady paladin." Sharwyn's grin was conspiratorial. "Talented indeed."

Aribeth felt herself blush. Thoughts swam vaguely at the end of her consciousness, ideas of Damon and this seductive she-bard locked in a passionate embrace. Some distant, conscientious voice in Aribeth's head shouted something about fidelity, but it was a faraway voice and thoroughly muffled behind the sensuality surrounding her, the fragrance of camphor, of Sharwyn's perfume and Damon's warmth.

"Is he, now," Aribeth said. She lifted the edge of her goblet to her lips and took another long, slow sip. It had been so long, too long, since the lady paladin had allowed her body any measure of decadence--which, on occasion, was acceptable. Even Tyr professed moderation in all things, rather than outright denial and mortification of the flesh as the Ilmateri believed. There had been one night, years and years ago, with a beautiful elven cleric of Sune.

But since then, her bed had been cold. Even Fenthick, she realized tonight, had never truly pleased her. Why should tonight not be different?

Sharwyn leaned close to her. Aribeth felt her breath against the elven curve of her ear, and as Damon filled another cup, she whispered.

"But don't take my word for it, lady paladin."

***

Two cups of wine and a few scandalous flirtations later, the three of them left the bar behind with Aribeth's inhibitions somewhere at the bottom of a goblet. She hadn't much time to relish the salacious thrill of seeing for the first time the decadent interiors of the Moonstone Masks's infamous bedrooms before Aribeth, gasping, felt herself pressed against the door. Damon's hands ran along her arms, gripped her there, his lips locking into her own in a fiery kiss. The boy was taller than she, strong and without shame, his tongue expertly wrapping and tugging along her own, parting the mouth of Neverwinter's most unreachable woman, Fenthick's lover herself. His kiss was hard, passionate, more than her lover ever gave her. Aribeth felt herself reaching up his chest, her fingers tremulous as she gripped at the buttons of his shirt.

Her ears pounded with the frenetic beat of her heart. She kissed him, wrapped her elegant arms around his shoulders, feeling his hot breath fill her throat, her senses swimming in a sweltering, instinctive lust.

Sharwyn slipped her hands behind her back. She was seated on the edge of the bed, watching her young lover stoke the paladin's burgeoning fire. Aribeth was surprisingly passionate, as if releasing many years of suffocated desire, her nails dragging down Damon's back. Sharwyn peeled her garment from her body, tossing the velvet fabric aside as she always did when undressing for Damon. Her breasts spilled forth, heavy and full, perfectly shaped and crowned with her reddish nipples growing taut at the sound of her lover eliciting hot moans from the elven paladin.

Aribeth laughed softly as Damon pulled her over to the bed and threw her onto it, her breasts jiggling behind her loose shirt. Sharwyn gripped her fingers into that fabric, pulling it apart with a sharp gasp from Aribeth, whose cheeks flushed as the bard exposed her. Damon grinned broadly. He was acting out what every other young guard in the force had dreamed about whenever Aribeth, stern and beautiful, passed by them. Aribeth gasped and writhed as the pair of them swiftly undressed her, tossing garments here and there to drape across furniture.

"You are so beautiful," Sharwyn moaned, taking in the sight of Aribeth with her eyes. The paladin's skin still glistened with the soft oil of her bath, her heavy, pale breasts rising and falling above a firm abdomen, shapely hips that spread with Damon's hands. Aribeth blushed. Coming from this delectable specimen of a human bard, the words were truly flattering. Aribeth gazed up, gasping as Damon felt up her thighs, at Sharwyn's alluring physique, that naturaly tilt to her hips and the shape of her full, ripe breasts, that small waist. It was going to be a long, wonderful night.

They kissed, and Sharwyn tasted Aribeth's lips, smaller than her own, but soft, and the lingering taste of Damon in her mouth. Scarlet hair draped into auburn, Aribeth's arms around the woman's slim throat. Part of her couldn't comprehend what was happening to her; everything unfolded in a dreamlike sequence, a saturation of erotic sensations that twisted together until the taste of Sharwyn's mouth became indiscernible from the feel of her slender body sliding along Aribeth's from the feel of Damon spreading her legs.

Damon grinned at the sight presented before him, the soft, tight cunt of the finest paladin of Neverwinter, Lady Tylmarande's bare pussy, small and tight, a slim pink slit tucked cutely between her legs. The two lovers shared a secret smirk, Damon and Sharwyn, before the bardess squirmed her way down Aribeth's body. She giggled, laying on her side against the elf, her red hair tickling Aribeth's abdomen. Sharwyn grasped and massaged Aribeth's full breasts, working that silken flesh between her fingers, her lips and her tongue soaking Aribeth's nipple. Sharwyn suckled from her, eliciting a throaty moan from the paladin who, her face confronted with the formidable sight of Sharwyn's breasts, those curves brushing along her face as the human writhed gently against her. Aribeth parted her lips, kissing and sucking along her flesh, roads of glistening saliva mapped along their breasts and dripping in pearly streams along their stomachs. The two women held one another, arms twined around the other's shoulders, feasting messily on one another's breasts. A hot blush crept along Aribeth's cheeks. She was surrendered to the moment now, swept into their carnal festivities; consequences, she silently reminded herself in the corner of her consciousness still capable of self-reflection, would need to wait until the morning.