Talla's Fallen Temple Ch. 26

"I don't have a problem," Zia said, her voice still icy. "Assholes like that guy are the reason I wanted to be a Fighter in the first place."

"Exactly," Kit said. "What's Sergeant Yung worried about?"

"That we'll feel weird about seeing a dead body, I guess," Del shrugged. "It is kind of creepy."

"But the guy was an asshole," Zia reminded her.

"Yes," Del acknowledged wearily. "But corpses of assholes can still be creepy."

Zia dismissed this with a contemptuous snort as she stood up and walked away from the others toward the back of the room.

Zhair'lo searched his feelings, trying to find some sensation he could associate with watching those three arrows sink into a man's flesh. There was nothing. He'd never known Chet, except as a story told by someone else. It was no more emotional experience than watching Kenji put an arrow through a deer.

Shouldn't he have some reaction? He'd just watched another human being die and he couldn't drum up the slightest bit of sympathy. It probably helped that the man had been marked for death long before they'd started marching that morning, but still ...

"This is what I came here to do," he said aloud. "Master Lyric warned me that this was part of being a Fighter before I asked to join."

"Yeah," Bree jumped a little too quickly to agree. "No real surprise."

Zhair'lo looked around the room, examining each of his fellow Recruits, and could find no hint of deception or concern among them. They seemed, to his eye, to be supremely indifferent to the deaths of the Temple's enemies. For himself, Zhair'lo only felt disappointment. Somewhere, out there, were the Temple's worthy enemies; the enemies that required a force of thousands to fight. These dirty nomads had emphatically not been of such quality. But who were the enemies worth fighting? What had Sergeant Yung been talking about?

"I wouldn't mind actually learning how to use a sword," Kit pointed out.

"Starting tomorrow," Z'rus added, the barest hint of eagerness laced with frustration evident in his voice.

Talla left the Temple with a group of Endowment women. The Mill to which she was headed was staffed, it turned out, by a fairly large number of men.

"A Mill needs twelve of us?" she asked the most senior member of the group.

The woman, an Officer in a top so transparent it had to be contraband, brushed back her blonde hair to look at Talla.

"It's more than just a Mill," she laughed, blue eyes sparkling in the torchlight. "It also serves as a station for a large group of Carters."

With a wave of her hand that set her large breasts undulating beneath her sheer top, she added, "We'll be meeting up with Sweetness and Form before we even open the doors."

'Just like out at Zhair'lo's Farm, then,' Talla thought.

Zhair'lo was very much on her mind, her senses telling her this was the general direction of his Barracks. She twisted her lips, knowing there was no chance of having him tonight. She would have to satisfy herself with this boy Taust as a target for her frustrations. She hoped to all nine hells he was up to it.

"You seem eager," the Officer smiled as she ducked under the awning of a bakery.

"It's been a rough couple of days."

"Really?" the response was almost sarcastic.

"Bow training," Talla explained quickly. "Kinda tense. Haven't been sleeping well."

The Officer gave a knowing nod as they navigated through a maze of empty barrels left for the Carters to return in the morning.

"Some good, exhausting Service will fix that," the older woman's voice was full of assurance. "Ride 'em as many times as you can. Use up all your energy, then a nice walk back home for fresh air. You'll sleep like a baby."

"Really?"

"I know those Form women can be a bit trying," the Officer was looking off in the distance now, perhaps wistfully imagining her own upcoming encounter. "But they mean well. How come you're doing it now, instead of when you were a Virgin?"

The clothing, of course, had given Talla away. She'd been meaning to purchase something a bit more ambiguous as far as indicating her rank went, but the shortness of her present skirt left no doubt of her rank.

"I never really was a Virgin," she explained, nodding at her breasts. "Jumped ahead because of uh ... these."

"A lot of that going around with the new Seal Breakers," the Officer noted. "How many more weeks of training do you have?"

"Three left, I think," Talla said. "They keep changing it. They said we have to learn a few field manoeuvres next."

"The good news is that you only have to go through all that nonsense once. We all do. After that, maybe once a year they call you back to make sure you still know which end of the bow is which."

Talla found it strange to hear an Officer speak so casually about something that ought to be a serious matter.

"You aren't worried about ever having to fight?"

"No, dear," the woman in orange laughed, setting her breasts in motion again, "that's not terribly likely. It's not as if we're living on the frontier, is it?"

"No, I guess not."

There was a frontier, then, that was dangerous. That admission was significant.

Talla had been getting a lot of negative vibes from Zhair'lo today, and even with their proximity, she couldn't get a clear picture of the source of his bad mood. It certainly didn't portend danger.

She huffed out a breath, wondering what he was making of her feelings for the last day or so. Had he even noticed? It seemed to her that he was heavily preoccupied with his own problems. Whatever he was doing, it wasn't sex, at least, but that was all she could tell for now. Maybe once his mind calmed down -

"And here we are," the Officer announced as they rounded a bend in the road. "Sweetness and Form got here ahead of us."

The women of Form were the easiest to spot. While the Sweetness women could dress well, it was the Form women who pushed the extremes in both directions. The women of Iron and Tight, sticklers for the rules, never deviated from the precise lengths and dimensions of clothing for their ranks. Was their clothing snug over their taut muscles? Absolutely it was. But was it garish or translucent. Never.

Facial, on the other hand, could be spotted instantly. If it wasn't for the colours, their costumes would have had almost nothing to do with their ranks. Women in orange were wearing skirts made of thin strips of fabric without anything underneath. Others, in yellow, seemed to be wearing only their underwear instead of the appropriate grass skirts. The ones who had significant breasts seem to take great glee in leaving parts of their aureole exposed above the cuts of their narrow, bra-like tops.

It was while Talla was staring at one such woman that another girl, a little taller than herself, hooked Talla's arm.

"Fancy seeing you again," the girl spirited Talla away from her sisters.

Her eyes were sharp and seemed lighter in colour, and her cheekbones had taken much away from the roundness of her face, but Talla still recognized her.

"Lacy?" Talla asked, just to be sure.

"I look a bit different now, don't I?"

"A bit, yeah."

"Had another upgrade," Lacy said proudly. "Another load in the face and suddenly you don't recognize me."

"You make it sound so easy," Talla laughed.

"What? A boy coming in my face? It's not a big deal."

They were a bit farther away now, and Lacy lowered her voice.

"You are 'Talla' tonight?"

"Yes."

"Okay, good," she said. "Didn't want to give anything away."

"I couldn't do any of that without you anyway," Talla pointed out.

"And not with us either," Lacy sighed. "Not you, at least, sorry."

"What?"

"After the last time, the other girls are a bit scared," she whispered to Talla. "Jenni went through an awful interrogation because of all that weirdness."

"Oh, yeah."

"And now they're going crazy again because more guards fell asleep down in the dungeons somewhere. We're having to lay low for a bit."

Talla had no intention of trying to set up another clandestine meeting with Zhair'lo anyway.

"That makes sense," Talla agreed. "Do you normally try to set up more than one meeting like that?"

"No," Lacy shook her head. "Everybody gets a shot when we can do it, but if you want a second one, you'd have had to wait anyway. We can't be obvious about it."

Lacy the conspirator disappeared suddenly, replaced by the slightly dippy Lacy. Every ounce of cleverness disappeared in favour of the face she now showed.

"Who you seeing tonight?" she asked, her voice gone giddy and foolish.

"Someone named Taust."

Lacy's vivid eyes sparkled in the torchlight as they lined up to enter the doorway behind a crew of women in yellow. The girl looked even more obviously changed now that Talla saw her in the semi-clarity of the light from the Mill's front porch torches. Not only had her roundish face sharpened, but her almond shaped eyes were clearly veering from brown into hazel.

The Facial girl finally shook her head. "Name doesn't ring a bell, but I'm sure he'll love your tits regardless."

"You can normally remember all the guys you've Served?"

"Memory's good," Lacy tapped her temple with one finger. "Comes with the Facial upgrades."

The girls remained with their arms hooked together, Lacy leaning on Talla's shoulder just as she had the day they'd met so long ago. The older, higher ranked women went first, calling out the names of their men. Talla watched the room slowly empty out and realized that they'd be clearing the place right out for the night. Lacy didn't seem to notice, preoccupied as she was with slipping a hand under Talla's skirt. An exhalation that was nearly a moan escaped Talla's lips and she felt her body squirming at the touch. She would be wet when she went to bed.

Looking out across the tables where the remaining men waited, she wondered which one of the boys was Taust. Was it the skinny blonde one? Or maybe the black haired one with the deep eyes? There were so many here of the right age it was hard to tell. Talla glanced sideways at her sisters and found many dressed in white coming to Serve them.

Oddly, however, none of the other women were calling out names.

Lacy pinched Talla's rear.

"What?"

"They're waiting for you," she whispered. "Get on with it."

"Why? I'm only an Initiate," Talla took another look around her. "There must a Neophyte here somewhere."

"Doesn't matter," Lacy said. "Clothing tells lies at night. They see your boobs."

She gave Talla an affection smack on the ass and propelled her to the front of the dais that represented the foyer of the common room.

"Taust!" she called out, still feeling out of place to the fore of women who had years more experience than she did.

In the dim lighting, she saw a tall boy twitch and make eye contact with her. He kept the sides of his head shaved and maintained a long, dark hair neat pony-tail with what remained on top of his head. Talla noticed the gangly way he rose from his seat, as if he was at some awkward stage of growth, not yet used to the length of his limbs.

He paused, midway through his first step toward her, and raised a thoughtful finger in the air. Turning back to his table, he grabbed a half empty green glass bottle and a pair of long stem glasses.

"Fancy a drink?" he asked, crossing the floor to her.

She let his gentle accent roll over her. His "fancy" sounded like "fawn-see".

"What is it?" she gestured to the bottle.

"Wine," he said. "We made it from a overage of cranberries."

"Cranberry wine?" Talla worried as he hooked her arm and led her away. "How does that taste?"

"Delicious," he assured her, then mocking lowered his voice to a conspiratorial tone, "we sugar it to the nines."

She couldn't keep herself from giggling.

"Something tells me you're a few drinks ahead of me," Talla admonished, trying to decide if she really wanted to drink alcohol. Her experiences thus far, which mostly came later in the evening when she was with women, had not gone so well. "I don't want you getting too clumsy."

"Fear not, fear not," Taust promised, leading her gently up a set of stairs. "I can function perfectly well on my back."

"Really? Working in a Mill? I might have to report you for laziness."

Talla understood very well what sort of man she had tonight. He was a playful idiot, or at least liked to pretend to be one. She had seen more than enough of those on the female side of things to recognize the type.

"This is more than a Mill," he whispered, ushering her through a door. "We are also Carters, Brewers, Wine-makers and -"

"None of which you can accomplish lying on your back," she pointed out curtly.

"I was getting to that," he raised a finger, interrupting the lighting of a candle.

"My apologies."

"The wheel can also be used to churn a laundry tub," he said. "The manipulation of which is often done from underneath, where cogs are oiled and wood is fed into the fires."

"So you're responsible for laundry -?"

"Which involves sliding around on my back. But I much prefer wine making, to be honest. The fragrances are easier on the nose."

With this, he poured her a glass full of the sparkling red liquid and bade her to test it with a wiggle of his eyebrows.

"Smells nice," she said and took a sip. "Nice. Fizzy."

"Mm, the 'fizzy' is actually bad," he poured himself a glass. "Too much and they'll blow the corks right out of the bottles. One must be careful. It's the most gods awful mess in the cellars when that happens."

Talla hummed an acknowledgement and took another sip.

"That's how you get ants," he added.

She laughed again, helplessly, wondering if the alcohol was already getting to her.

"Now," he reached behind her to lay his glass on a dresser, "regarding this 'being on one's back'."

"Yes," she moved closer, relinquishing her own glass to his hand.

"Which way do you prefer?"

"I'm not too partial," she kept her chin down but looked upward into his eyes. "But I'm worried about you falling over."

Their noses touched and the fruited scent of the wine came strongly with the heat of his breath.

"It's alright," he smiled. "The important part of me is sure to be upright."

"We'll see ab-"

He kissed her before she could finish her sentence, kissed her with lips wet and sweet from wine. Talla closed her eyes, sinking into the lust that was overwhelming her. A night of panicked fear and a day of frustration vanished in a tingling wave that sizzled down to the base of her spine. She could run away from her rebellious plans for the next couple of bells; drown herself in the arms of this winemaker.

Their lips parted, foreheads touching as they caught their breaths.

Taust's eyes opened, looking down between them.

"Those are the largest breasts I've ever seen."

"No, they aren't."

"I think I'd -"

"You haven't actually seen them yet," she pointed out. "Can you manage to untie me or is that asking too much?"

His arms slid upward from where they had rested on her hips and found the knots she'd made earlier that evening.

"One ... and ... two," he counted, letting out a sigh as her breasts relaxed a little.

"Now," she said, shifting her shoulders so the loose cloth fell from her chest, "these are the largest breasts you've ever seen."

"Indeed," he breathed, sliding his right hand between their bodies to gently cup her, his thumb resting just under her nipple. "I never thought myself a breast man."

"I've changed a lot of minds," she admitted, letting playful guilt into her voice.

"One imagines," he said, squeezing firmly and crushing her breast against her rib cage.

Talla moaned, her eyes closing involuntarily, and their mouths found each other again. She hadn't drunk much, but it was suddenly her hands that were struck clumsy, fumbling around at his back for the ties on his shorts. Taust squeezed harder, digging his fingertips into the augmented muscles behind her breasts. She felt her arms alternate between tingling and numbness. The boy might never have seen breasts so large, but he knew what it was to be Abundance.

'Or possibly,' she thought, 'he just likes to squeeze tits really hard.'

The latter seemed more likely.

His shorts, loosened at the waist, caught on the tip of his erection. He made a complaining noise into her mouth and she shifted her body to slip the clothing clear and down to the floor.

Gently but quickly, he turned her around and pulled her body against his. His erection pressed against the fabric of her skirt and nestled between her cheeks. Over the front of Talla's naked chest, his arms crossed and his hands gripped both her breasts. She pushed out with her upper body and back with her hips, grinding against his penis as his fingers squeezed her breasts. The rhythm of his hands, tightening and loosening, felt as if he expected he could force milk to issue forth from them.

"Are you hard enough?" she goaded.

By way of response, he pushed into her.

"You like it like this?" he whispered and bit into her neck.

"Anyway you want it," she breathed, "just keep milking me like that and stick it in."

Taust's right hand drifted away to her waist while the left continued clenching at her breast. He didn't bother untying her skirt but instead pushed it's fabric up and out of the way.

Talla felt him back away, just enough to let the tip of his erection draw down between her cheeks. She bent her knees out, spreading herself for him, letting him slide until he was underneath her. With one hand on the dresser, she leaned over and used the other to push his twitching manhood between her lips, parting them and enjoying the delicious feeling of the edge of his foreskin rubbing against her clitoris.

"Wet, indeed," he murmured.

Taust could no longer whisper in her ear, given how she was leaning over, but he could still reach around and cup her breasts.

"Do you want to fuck me, or not?" she called out.

"Yes," Taust hissed back.

"Then squeeze like you mean it."

He crushed her breasts against her chest and Talla felt his thumbs and forefingers twisting at her nipples. She moaned, low and primal. Enough things had gone wrong today. She desired neither thought nor kindness, compassion nor gentleness. She wanted a ragingly hard cock forced up inside her.

"Now!" she announced, pushing the head of his erection back from her clitoris toward her sopping wet entrance.

Taust, sufficiently aroused, pulled down savagely on her breasts and pushed into her body to all his depth.

'A mirror,' Talla thought. 'I would love a mirror right now.'

She said nothing of her desire for such luxury, but instead leaned over the dresser until her shoulders were level with her ass, arching her back to give the most stress to the manhood inside her and letting Taust's thrusting shake her breasts back and forth.

"Nine gods, yes," Talla shrieked. "Harder!"

Taust held on to her hips, yanking back as he thrust forward. Talla felt the pressure this was creating on her insides, as if he were probing her and opening her up. She had never felt such a strong to have her body treated so roughly.

The only downside to this whole affair was that, given the intensity of their interaction and the level of arousal she'd brought into the room with her, there was no way it could go the distance.

Taust, as she'd demanded, was hammering away at her rear. Talla now had to brace both her forearms against the dresser to prevent being driven headfirst into the piece of furniture. Finally, with a grand thrust and upward twist, she felt his orgasm take her away. He left himself buried deep inside her as their bodies shuddered, his expelling semen into her depths, her body leaking her own fluids down the inside of her thighs.

"Nine gods," Taust heaved himself on to the bed after he'd slid out of her.