Sparks of magelight fluttered in a swell of sensual colors as they danced through to every dark shadow in the hall. The strumming chords of the lutist, the rhythmic beat of drums, and the soulful melody of the soft skinned ilari woman center stage, mixed together in a sweet harmony. Her eyes fixated on Mirio as she searched within him for the source of his unique heir. Armored by the power of her song, her gaze fought past all convention and dived deep into the signs of endless physical exertion that had turned muscle into hardened steel. And as she delved, she found wondrous stories in his mana, circles dancing in his blood, and colors of the rainbow seeping through every fiber of his being.

This mysterious man of stoic steel, whose soul must have been sculpted as rain danced across morning sunlight, fueled her as she sculpted her effervescent notes. She dug deeper and deeper with her song until she broke through the color to a pain deeper than imagination could reach, and a dark and dangerous power that could only be seen in his shadow.

The whisper of her soulful notes turned dark, and the glitter of the magelight dimmed as she stepped off stage and waltzed in lilting steps towards him. Her hips tracing out sensual curves as she took his scarred face in her hands, and ignored the fiery gaze of the halfling girl off to the side of her. With a wave of her hand she imagined his unscarred face and drew it forth with a shimmer of magic. She smoothed her fingertips across the scar, its sensation still present as the illusory spell hung there for a moment before vanishing.

She turned to the halfling girl who stared in a daze at the man she had made whole and let a wry smile ride up her lips. As she had suspected, the woman had wanted to know how he had been when whole just as she did. With a twirl and prancing steps she carried her song back to center stage, and brought the hall to erupt as the drum beat thundered to its peak, and then silence.

Mirio stood to his feet, his mortal eye saw the performance all others saw, and yet his scarred eye saw so much more.

This was no song…

It was a magical journey set out in tones and melodies that spoke of a means to weave together fragments of reality into the forms it desired to become. It was a song built by a skilled bard, a song initially built by Akur.

A part of Mirio wanted to burn the whole city to the ground to rid it of the curse of his mark. But stirring in his blood was a reminder of the same. Another part of him, wanted to save its history in his memory, and all the things it could teach him. Had Akur always been evil? Or had for a moment he considered another path?

The dark magic of his curse swirled in his blood, and bled into his shadows, casting his figure in a deeper contrast than all others who gathered in the hall. The circles in his blood had jumped and skipped, and formed into strange magical glyphs as she had sung, and in this simple song he had transformed. It had been a revelation that flowed through him as though an ancient language had reawoken after thousands of years, to reveal to him, and him alone, the power of a confident soul.

He gazed down from the ilari woman as she soaked in the cheers of the crowd.

“That’s Taby, she’s a real showboat, always been that way” Rose whispered as she nestled up at Mirio’s side, “But that is part of what it means to grow up in Tier”.

Mirio smiled and nodded as he prepared himself to leave to find an inn, “I’ve got to head out”

“Mhm” Rose agreed, reading his mind, “You are tired I guess”

“Something like that”

…

The city jeweler peered ever deeper into the crystalline structure of the stone held between his fingertips. Had he ever seen a more perfect stone? Curiosity fought a tug of war with his merchant instincts as he swallowed down his questions about where the boy had found the treasure.

“I can give you a platinum for it” he said with a shrewd nod.

“Can I get it in change?” the boy replied as his eyes gazed around the shop, half bored, half just to avoid having to make eye contact, errands were errands after all, and he had places to be.

“Here you go, in golds and silvers”

“Thanks” the boy said as he tied the small satchel to his belt and exited the store.

With a sniff of his nose he could smell salt on the air, and the sea it belonged to in the north. Pushing his way through the crowded streets, he made his way north. Each part of the city he passed through told its own story, from the plaza’s that lead to the palace, the local market streets, the ornamental houses of the affluent that stood elevated above the scratched up motar houses of the poor.

Music lingered in the air as small groups of performers celebrated the end of the war all across the city. Yet for our curious adventurer, he didn’t have much time to waste, as the crystal around his neck thrummed.

The last of the ghettos and warehouses broke open to reveal splashing mist as waves broke against the seawall. Sailors laughed and cursed at one another as they hauled shipments to the dock men and their clipboards.

“How much to head north” the boy asked a man carving out a new notch for the moorings of his ship.

“This bloody post always finds its way loose, you mind holding this for a sec?”

The bluish grey haired adventurer gripped onto the rope and watched as the sailor satisfied his frustration by carving out a deeper notch.

“So where you headed? North was it?”

“Yep”

“Its a dozen gold for a spot in the hold, you got that much?”

The boy scooped out a handful of gold coins and slapped it into the sailors hand before striding up onto the deck of the ship, “when do we head out?”.

…

The maid’s hands trembled as she fumbled for the key to Mirio’s room. Her pink hair and big blue eyes stared at Mirio as his presence filled the hallway with a mysterious power. Was she the only one noticing this? Or was this man actually thrumming with dangerous magic?

Mirio smiled kindly as he entered the room with Rose at his heels and waved the maid off, “We’ll be fine, I just really need to get some shut eye” he joked, though it didn’t land; the girl not noticing he only had one.

Mirio slumped down onto the bed in a huff and stretched out, while Rose carefully positioned herself just the right distance away to observe him closely but not be in the way.

“What is it?” he said as he stared up at the ceiling.

“Are you okay being alone?”

Mirio turned to see Rose twisting herself into knots concerned about him, “Yeah, I’ll be fine”.

“I don’t live that far, if you need me ask at reception, they’ll know where to find me”

“Mhm” he nodded before turning back to his spot on the ceiling.

Reality drifted away, like ink into an ocean of stars, as night rolled over the city, and song carried through the streets muffled out by the wooden shutters closed across the windowsill.

BUMP

“Huh, what is that?” he thought as he opened his eye and felt a weight on his side, “You are still here?” he questioned Rose as she squinted open an eye.

“You just stopped responding, I was worried to leave you” she murmured as she sleepily rubbed her eyes.

“I’m fine, I was just tired” he said whilst reassuredly rubbing the back of her hand.

“Mmph” she whimpered as she bit her bottom lip and bundled her hand in his shirt.

Her eyes glistened as she looked up at him uncertain of his response.

Miro kept quiet and observed her as she kept her breathing slow and smoothed her hand up along his chest.

“You don’t have to be polite if you want me to go,” she mumbled softly.

“Tenderness won’t heal the scars I bear” Mirio whispered warmly.

“I know…” Rose continued as she reached up with her hand to caress his cheekbones.

The bed creaked as she tilted herself forward and held herself over him.

Mirio hadn’t noticed it immediately, but this was the first time she had been out of her fur coat. The soft cotton of her undershirt hung tight at the bosom of her chest, and loose at her waist as she drew her leg carefully over him.

Her breath was warm as she leaned into his ear and hummed gently. She traced her lips against his ear lobe for a moment and found her way back to hovering over his lips, searching for the best way to plunge them into her own.

Mirio stopped her for a moment with the gentle touch of the tip of his fingers, as he slipped a lock of her hair behind her ear. Warmly gazing into her eyes, he let his gaze drift to her lips as her body sunk over him, her breasts kissing his chest just moments before her lips found his own.

Her hands wound tight into the bedding as she threw back her loose hair and gasped for a breath amidst a rush of ecstasy as she felt his hand grip the outside of her thigh.

“Uf uf uf” she panted, as she rushed to bundle up her shirt and pull it over her shoulder, whipping it off the side of the bed.

The wooden shutters creaked open as wind blew in upon the moonlight sonata dreaming its way in from the streets below.

“Uf uf uf” she panted, as the moonlight glistened against her sweet honeyed skin.

“Uf uf umph” she panted and then clasped her grip.

She paused for a moment and smiled down at Mirio as his hand smoothed over her breast. She felt a jolt of excitement as he grazed close to her nipple, mana flowed from the fresh bounce of her skin and hung tight to Mirio’s hand, as he plunged his hand into her breasts but this time deeper.

“Uh” she moaned as biting her lip and tossed her hair down her back.

Rhything her hips back and forth, she cradled ecstasy stirring deep in her heart, his hand tracing its way up the small of her back until it gripped tight and squeezed tight with a deep thrust.

She felt a part of her fall away, as sparkling light and streams of sensual magic collapsed into her core before bouncing back out, tightening her skin into goosebumps.

“Uf uf uf” she clammered for breath, “uf uf ufff”.

His skin was so warm, the grip of his hands so careful yet firm, and his skin tasted like cinnamon against her lips. The gorgeous rainbow color of his soul, stirred within her like a divine wind. The feeling of him inside her held her in the skies as she soared through a dreamscape of pleasure like an eagle.

How was it she could trust him so effortlessly with her body, how was it that when he moved she had already responded in kind, how was it that while enraptured by passion they were so intune. She hadn’t felt this way before with the stable boy or the baker’s son, and definitely not that pompous ilari prick Scanton. It was as though she was a lone mountain that now had to realize her true nature was a volcano.

She gripped tight onto Mirio, as tight as she could and buried her eyes into him as the volcano overflowed.

“Rwar!” she growled as she shook and slammed through and into the bed.

She wrestled and banged, and swung with all her might, like a drunken sailor caught up in a merry song. Too giddy to notice the change in her heart as she bit a little into Mirio’s shoulder and clawed at his biceps in a mad flurry.

Mirio’s hand breached up through her furious storm of lust and desire and slipped to the nape of her neck, his thumb gently placed against her jugular, stroking her softly as her pulse thrummed underneath.

Mirio smirked as he witnessed Rose glow and become larger than herself, a force of her own making, and honest in her animalistic desire. Was it okay for him to let go? To delve into discovering her beauty and take it for his own?

Maybe it was, but how would he do it?

He knew how to strum out the begging triumph of her womanhood but how could he flow with it, honestly, and wound tight to her bosom, and the tight clasp of her thighs?

Maybe if he nibbled a bit on her nipples, and traced his lips across the sparks of moonlight? Following that curve along her neck, and wrapping his fingers tight into the back of her hair.

“Ugh” Rose gargled in pleasure, her lips blooming like a flower, begging for him to taste them.

…

Wind streamed in through a window that wasn’t of the inn. Surrounding the room were an assortment of crystals and musical instruments. The purple skin of an ilari woman was flushed with excitement as she tightened her thighs around one of her hands. The other was held tight to a crystal ball, and reflected within Mirio and Rose in the throws of passion.

“I knew it” she murmured under delighted moans, “I knew he was full of such vibrant flavor”

“Uh” she moaned as she dipped her head back, and her breasts gently throbbed with the pulsations of her orgasm.

“Haah, haah, haah” she said as scrambling for breath.

“Mmph” she said as she bit her lips and let a sparkle dance across the soulful depth of her eyes.

Her hand gently drifted up off the crystal ball and she traced gentle circles across its surface like she might have touched Mirio’s skin, had she the chance.

“I knew my song would unchain them,” she grinned.

“Ha ha ha”

…

“Uf uf uf”

Rose panted softer now as she lowered the side of her face onto Mirio’s chest and nestled into a comfy position to bask in her inner bliss.

Mirio traced the curving lines of her figure with his fingertips like he was painting the moment into his mind to savor her taste.

“You won’t forget me” she murmured gently against his chest.

Mirio looked down at her confused. What was she talking about?

“When you move on I mean…”

Mirio’s heart swelled with sorrow at her words, because he knew what she meant by them. He knew that they would never be larger than this moment together, and that she was giving her a blessing to be himself without fear or guilt. She had consumed him too after all.

Mirio gripped tighter onto her, holding her warmly as the distance of the room threatened its return.

…

The blue-ish grey haired boy stared out over the bow of the ship as it broke over wave peaks. The thrum and thud of the vessel echoing through its depths and finding its way to his feet and hands. He closed his eyes as the wind streamed through his hair, and the crystal necklace sung a gentle song, as though it were just that little closer to home.