This Is What It's Like To Be Lovers [ON HOLD]

2: When All That's Left Is Hurt

"The Page of Wands."

"Bullshit! I'll have the Devil set you up with someone Major. Which one do you want? I'm sure he can get even The World or Judgement to comply. Just let me know."

Lari had only nodded.

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The night of Queen Jade's invasion, the Princess was awake, soaking in the warm, fragrant water, scented with the orange bath salts a foreign trader had brought to the Emperor's household. Although, no land was now foreign to them anymore.

Larimar ran over her arms and legs a cream-colored bar of soap that her handmaiden had left in a leather pouch beside her marble bathtub. She stretched her arm for a washrag kept just at the edge of the tub and brought it to herself.

She rubbed absentmindedly, feeling the rough texture of the cloth on the soft give of her thighs, inching closer and closer to where her legs met. Larimar closed her eyes, shutting out the light from the candles surrounding her, and gave in to the pleasure only she knew how to gift herself.

Somebody else had recently attempted to meet her at her highest point of pleasure. A young soldier, Jun, from the sandside realm of Liiva, her age but younger at heart. He had come to the castle with a message from the warden he served and expected only to see one of the ministers.

But the first member of the royal family he met eyes with that day was the High Princess. Larimar was studying the phenology of mountain flowers as a guard led him through the palace gardens and they immediately caught each other's eyes. She was a vision and he was not far off.

The Princess greeted him with a bow but Jun unsheathed his sword, making the accompanying guard a little nervous, and knelt in front of her. She watched his brown curls sway in the mountain winds as he offered her his sword.

"Never before have I seen yet only heard of such beauty." His voice was bold and loud enough to make the passerby ministers, courtiers, handmaidens all linger as an audience.

"I can only hope you never have enemies that need be slaughtered, but if a vengeful mortal even dares to cross your path, my sword would be at your service, Princess. Every time."

His words had moved her, driven her to silence, for nobody had ever wanted to protect her. Guards stood sentient in front of her quarters, and handmaidens walked with her wherever she went but they were only doing their jobs.

Larimar only thanked him, her cheeks flaming red.

When the news of this encounter reached the Empress' ears, she invited the young knight to dinner. There, he spoke of his homerealm, of his family, and the achievements of his Commander father in the Battle of Nokimetsa.

"It's not an achievement if the battle was lost," the Emperor sneered at him.

"Kokhanyy, have you had tonight's lamb?" Vivian distracted her husband, allowing the youngsters to mingle.

Larimar gathered her wits and spoke first. She asked him of his dreams, his patron Arcana. He asked her of her health and the days leading up to their unexpected meeting, and by the time the night was no longer young, they were in each other's arms.

It was the first time Larimar had sneaked out of her quarters at night, the Page of Wands card in her hand. As soon as she had eluded the guards' eyes, her feet nearly glided across the dark corridors of the palace, leading her to the guest rooms.

The night before Jun left for his homerealm, he put a spell on her, a hex he had learned from his fox-faced patron Arcana, The Magician. He said that he had attached one end of a tether to her pinky and the other end to his and called it the "red string of fate", although she couldn't see it at all.

"Whenever you feel like seeing me, tug at it, Princess," he said, knotting their pinkies together. "And go to the nearest waterbody, or even fill your bath with water and look into it. I'll be there, I promise."

So, as the salt in her basin and the pleasure between her thighs engulfed her, blissfully ignorant of the scene in the courtyard of the castle, she curled her left pinky twice, as if pulling a thread, and waited. Only moments later, the water between her legs gurgled up and a face emerged there, the face of a pretty boy, only a season older than her, and keen on becoming her lover.

"Good even...ing, Pri...ncess," the face spoke. His voice was a little watery, gaspy, breaking for he had not quite mastered the magic yet. But she could see his face and that was enough.

"Good evening, Jun," Larimar smiled a shy smile. "Is this a good time? I didn't know how to ask beforehand, so..."

"Yeah...this is gre...at...I was just pre...pari...ng for... bed when I fe...lt the pull... I'm gl...ad you wan...ted to me...et."

Larimar laughed.

"I know... I know," he acknowledged. "It's...robab...ly soun...ding... a little... off! B...ut it'll... be better in...a few d...ays!"

"Okay," she replied, still shy.

Jun was gone before long, pulled to bed by a responsible senior officer, undeterred by young romance. Larimar sat in her bath for a little longer although the water had turned colder now. She stared at her fingers, all pruney, and decided to leave the tub.

Her cat, Miss Mewton Pie, had started purring from her adjacent bedroom and she craned her neck to take a look. The feline was standing on all fours at the threshold, refusing to enter a room that dabbled in one of the key purposes of water and complained about being left alone for so long.

"I know," Larimar replied, churning her washrag into the water and setting it aside. "So needy! I'll be there in a moment."

That was a false promise.

The Princess sat in the water for several more moments, her jaw hanging, and eyes wide with shock and curiosity. In the water, exactly where Jun had appeared only moments ago, was a clearer than ever image of The Moon.

With all the whiteness and the shades of probable terrain, it was as if it floated in her bathwater. Lari knew it was a moonless night, and even if it wasn't, there was no way it would be reflected in a closed room.

She sat there, her fingers tracing the outline of her mouth. Curious, she reached out to try to touch it, but her fingers passed through, the image proving to be nothing but an illusion. But when she tried to take her hand out of the water again, something zapped - like a mini lightning bolt through her fingertips, the bones of her arm, to reach the shoulder blade.

Larimar gasped, eliciting a low meow from her kitten. She took her hand and clutched it to her heart, trying to make sense of whatever happened but when she looked at her fingers again, there was nothing that could support her experience. Only her pruned skin.

Lari was sure it had something to do with the Arcana, she felt it in her guts, her fingertips, the deep swirl of magic. She rose from the water and the moment she was out of the tub, The Moon was gone.

Deciding to take guidance from the cards, she picked a soft, warm towel from a low bench and wrapped her hair with it. She turned once more to the tub before walking away. There was nothing but the water, murky now, from her bath.

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