Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Gather round, gather round. I have quite the story to tell you. Yes, that’s right—it’s about my sex life.

Ah, that seems to have scared some of my audience off. Well, I don’t know what you expected. I did say I was going to talk about certain illicit affairs, not all of which took place on this horrible ball of slime that you people call home.

The greatest inaccuracy is probably that I said I had a story to tell you. This narrative is far from my usual style. Consider it less of a fable and more of an anthology, traversing many planets, cultures, and, of course, people. You in the back, I see you raising your hand—what was it you wanted to ask? Did everyone in this story consent for me to tell it? Well, no—some of them are dead. And by dead, I meant Cognitive Shadows. And by Cognitive Shadows, I mean Kelsier.

No offence to any Cognitive Shadows in the audience, but you didn’t take death quite so literally.

Anyway, I wouldn’t be worried about consent. Anyone who is dead and not Kelsier doubtless no longer cares, due to the typically incurable condition of being a pile of bones. Anyone who is alive is free to complain, in the full knowledge that that’s not going to stop me. Anyone who occupies some troubling place in between life and death should consider worrying about the metaphysical ramifications of their existence rather than ragging on me for bringing up that time I gave them a handjob behind the Palanaeum. Got that? Good. I won’t be discussing consent again, except in the chapters of my story concerning consent, where I will be discussing it again. Any questions? Any questions that aren’t stupid questions, that is.

What’s that? Will I be telling the story about Bavadin and the half-rate Threnodite? No. Absolutely not. I don’t know where you even got that from. If you want that, go ask Bavadin yourself. Me, I wiped that from my memories. (I think. The problem with wiping your memory is it’s hard to remember if you actually did it.) You’re welcome to request stories not involving Bavadin, though. And, yes, some of the stories I have to tell you are not, strictly speaking, my stories, but rather stories that have fallen into my possession. Close enough, I say. One of them involves Kaladin—you’ll see.

Ah, I hear Kaladin squawking in the background. Yes, my friends, there is a Herald amongst us tonight—the Herald of second chances! Which he very generously gave me, many times—ours is a love story which shall outlast, at the very least, his stamina—as you will see. His chapters are amongst the most touching, so long as you understand the complicated language of grunts. (Believe me, I did try to invite the other Heralds, but they all ran away screaming.)

Oh yes, one other thing: don’t ask me about Jasnah, or I’ll cry. I mean it.

With all that out of the way, I think we can begin. Where should I start? Kaladin’s run-in with a Herald? (This is before he joined them, you understand.) The doomed efforts of Nomad to seduce the people of Canticle? That time I banged a Shard? (I’ll give you this advice for free: if you must try shagging a splinter of God, probably don’t go for Ruin. It has certain unwholesome proclivities, like trying to destroy the world. Still, better Ati than Kelsier!)

Do I see a hand up? I do? You want me to start with Kaladin? Well, I’m never one to deny my audience. Let’s go in with a bang, then, and hopefully by the time I’m done with this tale your standards will be so horrendously low that you won’t even notice the tedious overuse of crude anatomical terms.

One last note—quit heckling me, you in the back—and then I swear I will get on with it: if Retribution censors this tale, you can find me on Scadrial and in all good bookshops. I’m sure Nazh can find you something suitably overpriced and underpolished. (There’s only so much you can sell in Shadesmar, and when you’re a worldhopper fleeing the apocalyptic event of the week, you can get pretty desperate.)

But enough of half-rate Threnodites. On with the story!

Chapter Text

Not me, of course. I have certain difficulties with injuring myself; my body really doesn’t like being hurt, even more so than the average person. I once got decapitated, and survived just fine—well, they do say I give good head. And good old Taravangian has tried and failed to obliterate that twink (me). Kaladin, on the other hand, was only mortal at this time, and, well…

You’ll see.

Let’s set the scene. Urithiru, 1175. Ages ago, I know, but I have to start somewhere, preferably so that it’s clear all parties are interested and you don’t feel as though anything untoward happened. (For this reason, I have chosen to cut swathes of self-hating dialogue.) The weather is nice and toasty (thank you, Bondsmiths), and—

Yes, yes, I will put these scenes in the past tense. What do you take me for, a monster?

Let’s start again. Urithiru, 1175, ten days before everything went to shit. The weather was nice and toasty, and Kaladin was not having a very good time. (What’s new?) I, on the other hand, was doing just fine, which was why I knocked on his door and asked him if maybe a hug would help, or a blowjob.

“Leave me alone, Wit!” Kaladin said. (I should probably explain that at the time I was a jester, known as the king’s Wit. You know Elhokar, one of the old kings of Alethkar? Yep. He hired me. He wasn’t my boss at the time, because as the astute listener will have noticed he was dead by then, but I am flattered to be able to list him on my CV. I’m sure it’s lost me hundreds of interviews.) “I’m sleeping.”

“He’s not sleeping!” his honourspren, Sylphrena, chirped. “He’s lonely and he definitely wants a hug.”

“I don’t want any hugs,” Kaladin said, crossing his arms. “Blah blah blah I am unworthy of love blah blah blah.”

Okay, that isn’t exactly what he said, but you can ask Kaladin himself if you’re that interested.

“Well, it doesn’t have to be a hug,” I said, “it could be a firm, totally heterosexual handjob, if that would make you feel better.”

“Did you mean handshake?” he asked. (You lot didn’t have handshakes until those filthy Scadrian worldhoppers turned up, so I introduced Kaladin to them in advance. Precautions, and all that.)

“No,” I said, grinning.

Kaladin looked at me, then looked at Syl, who had been trying to get him laid for ages. Weirdly, it wasn’t working. Then he sighed and ushered me in.

“So,” said Kaladin.

“Indeed,” I said, awkwardly locking the door behind me. “Could you untie my hands? Jasnah is far better at knots than I expected.”

“She tied you up?” he said. “Why?”

“It’s a sex thing,” I said, watching Kaladin pale and shudder. He never did like Jasnah. “Or it might just be so she doesn’t have to deal with me. I’m not sure.”

Kaladin groaned. “Can’t you just soulcast them?”

“Of course he can!” Design buzzed. (Meet my best friend and archnemesis, the spren I foolishly bonded after my employer kicked the bucket. Yes, the two are related.) “But he likes being used and abused!”

She’s evil.

“Oh, fine,” Kaladin said, and painstakingly untied the knots with fumbling hands. I don’t know why he’s called the Herald of sexy times, he has all the raw sexual charisma of a drowning skyeel. “Uh … now what?”

“Well, it’d help if you took off your clothes,” I suggested. “And I’ve heard that lashings really spice things up in the bedroom.”

“That’s a horrific abuse of my powers!” he said.

Which, incidentally, is exactly what Jasnah said. But then, sending your vibrator to Shadesmar doesn’t have quite the same appeal as weightless sex.

“Listen,” I said, “just lash yourself up in the air and I’ll give you a blowjob. No strings attached, no gravity attached, and you even get to shut me up.”

I could see Kaladin thinking it through. Actually, I think I could hear him thinking it through, too.

“Alright,” he said at last, and lashed himself up in the air.

“You know, you should have done the undressing before the lashing,” I said. He sighed and cancelled the lashing. “Listen, how about you come here and I’ll sort you out?”

“Blah blah blah I don’t deserve nice things blah blah blah,” Kaladin said.

Am I going to do this every time? Yes, Kaladin, yes I am.

“If you want me to leave, then I can,” I said.

Kaladin sighed, shaking his head. “No, you’re right, I need to … well, this isn’t getting out, but it can’t hurt.”

I took this opportunity to kiss him. Gently, of course—a subtle leaning in and stroking his hair, not a smashing of faces. He was surprised for a moment, then softened. I could literally feel the tension draining from him.

This proved to be the perfect opportunity to sneak a hand down his breeches. A disclaimer: I will not be sharing any information on the size or lack thereof of anyone’s genitals in this story, except for kandras. (MeLaan prefers her dicks to be 17.526 centimetres exactly, but you didn’t hear that from me.) It’s rude, don’t you know? However, I can assure you that Kaladin was perfectly respectable, not to mention already half-hard. He moaned into my mouth as I slowly stroked his cock, drawing soft gasps out of him as he stiffened under my clever touch.

When he was fully hard, not to mention a bit more at ease, I pulled back to say, “Right, breeches off. Also, do you want my mouth on you or me in you?”

“I vote mouth,” Syl said, flitting to sit on Kaladin’s shoulder.

“Were you watching?” Kaladin yelped, instantly undoing all the work I’d done to make him feel better.

“I’m here for moral support!” she said. “What’s wrong with that?”

“It’s—that’s—” Kaladin spluttered. “Just—go away. Please? I don’t want bits of a dead god watching me have sex, no matter how cute and girlish they are. Especially not with Wit.”

I was only slightly offended by that.

“Oh, fine,” said Syl, and zipped off in a huff. She dragged Design with her—Ado knows what those two got up to together. Probably mathematical matchmaking, if I had to guess.

“So,” I said, “anal or oral? I’m not fussed, but I do have a meeting unscheduled.”

“Er,” said Kaladin. “Uh. Um. Arse?”

Kaladin Stormface, everyone.

“Very well,” I said, and we undressed. (I’m very sorry to those of you with a thing for clothes, but there is no way to make Kaladin taking off his breeches sound sexy. Believe me, I’ve tried.) I have to admit that I prefer oral sex—everyone always says that I have a clever tongue on me, and I’m even happier when I have a clever tongue on someone else—but you can’t beat some good old-fashioned sodomy. “Actually, we may as well start with oral anyway. If you could lash yourself again?”

He obeyed. I grinned, summoning lube from … well, I’ll leave that bit to your imagination. Let’s just say it wasn’t my pockets. I squeezed some lube onto my fingers, then put my mouth to good use, sucking his cock. He shuddered and gasped, leaking precome like stormlight, and he outright moaned when I slowly pressed a finger into him. (To this day, I’m amazed he had such trouble with it, what with that permanent stick he has up his arse.) It was a lot of fun working him open, one finger at a time. He made these delightful little groans, closing his eyes from relief as I pleasured him. He was very tightly wound; I think Syl may actually have had a point about getting him laid. And when I found his prostate, he cried out, as sexually repressed windrunners are wont to do. (I mean, why do you think they’re so enamoured with spears?) I pulled back, running my tongue down the base of his cock to watch how it throbbed, slowly fucking him from behind.

“How’s that?” I said, stilling my fingers.

“I,” Kaladin gasped, already coming apart, “I—don’t stop—”

“I thought you might like a bit more than my fingers,” I grinned.

“Mm,” he said, “yes—just—touch me, please—”

“You leave me no choice,” I said, putting on a condom. (Imported from Scadrial, of course. On Roshar they were still using pig’s bladder condoms back then. Absolutely vile.) I lined his hips up with me, then slowly pressed into Kaladin, right up to the hilt. Then I stopped and grinned at him. On one planet I’m actually known as He Who Grins. Not my finest moment. “How’s that?”

“I-I—please—move, you bastard—”

“Well, that’s not very polite,” I said, pulling out of him just as slowly.

“I—sorry—Wit—” He was incoherent by now, poor thing. “Storm me, please.”

“Very well.” Then I slammed into him, and he cried out, arching his back. I should point out that by this point Kaladin had survived several years of Damnation unscathed—and without much in the way of a sex life. I was mostly impressed that he hadn’t come already. I set a punishing pace, and a few well-placed thrusts later, he was sobbing, his cock red and twitching as I sank into him again and again. “Would you like a hand there?”

He nodded, whining in frustration, close but not close enough. I got the lube out from its unspecified location again to drizzle some over my hand (always use lube, unless you are shagging in the Slick-and-Slide Plains of Vukesh, in which case maybe don’t), and stroked his cock, firm and steady.

“Wit,” he gasped. “So—close—”

Those of you who have heard the legends of Kaladin Stormblessed may be wondering whose name Kaladin shouted as he came. Was it his best of friends Adolin? Was it his other best of friends, Shallan, also known as Adolin’s wife? Was it his friend turned enemy, Moash? Was it—if you have particularly distinguished taste—his equal and his rival, Leshwi? Or was it perhaps someone completely out there—like the Assassin in White—whose deadly touch he secretly craved?

It was none of those. It was me, because that’s who he was having sex with at the time. Sorry to disappoint.

Kaladin cried out my name, or rather, my job title, and came over my best black doublet, which I should have seen coming (heh). Unfortunately, he also chose this moment to accidentally cancel his lashing, which sent us both crashing down to the floor. I got elbow in my face; Kaladin bashed his head. It was a pretty ignominious way to end the whole affair, but, well, you knew what you were getting into with that one.

Kaladin did heal most of his injuries with towerlight, but there’s no Investiture that can cure the embarrassment of coming so hard you concuss yourself. Also, for the concerned, I did get to come eventually. But the more important bit—the bit I cared about at the time—was that he was feeling much better, at least, much more relaxed when he went to bed that night.

The next day he got sent on a mission that I knew he wouldn’t come back from, but that’s not the point.

Where shall we go next? Kaladin seems a bit annoyed that I brought up the sex injury debacle, so … yes, I think we should go to a Jasnah-related incident next. That’s sure to make him feel worse.

Chapter Text

I’ve met plenty of freaks in my time. I’ve also met plenty of ace people in my time. I’ve even met Kelsier. None of them were anywhere near as weird about sex as the Azish.

Jasnah wasn’t Azish, obviously. She was as Alethi as they come. (I swear, if you lot giggle every time I say the word come, I will stop.) But the Azish got on rather well with her. For one thing, she spoke perfect Azish—always a good start. For another, she thought documenting sexual exploits was a perfectly sensible idea.

Those of you in the audience who aren’t Makabaki are probably wondering what in Damnation I’m on about. I mean, you can probably guess what “taking notes during sex” looks like. But who in the cosmere feels the need to make scatter plots about their sex lives? It’s pretty much just the Azish and Jasnah.

Jasnah was actually quite agreeable in the bedroom … sometimes. I’m increasingly convinced that she only liked bondage so much because it was the only thing that would shut me up. And Adonalsium forbid you find her in a bad mood. Do you know what the sign on her study said? TRESPASSERS WILL BE SOULCAST. She meant it, too—that statue of the missing Tukari ambassador was a bit too realistic for my liking.

The point is, she was open to suggestions. Oh, look, Kaladin’s going green. I was equally open to suggestions, though the ‘threesome with Kaladin’ idea got shut down quick smart. In this case, she suggested grading sex. “Like normal carnal relations”—I never could convince her to stop saying that—“except that I take notes for the duration of our sexual encounter, and grade you afterwards.”

“When?” I asked. More often than not she wasn’t in the mood.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said breezily. “Surprise me.” I blinked. “Surprise me when I’m in my study, that is. I won’t have much luck without pen and paper.”

“As you wish, my liege,” I said, and wandered off to learn some new Reshi swear words from Lift. (I mean, what else are you supposed to do when the world’s ending, I ask? Stop the world from ending? Pssh, don’t be ridiculous.)

The time eventually came, quite a while later, that both I (having learnt all the swear words Lift had to offer) and Jasnah (having escaped her kingly duties for five fucking seconds) were in Jasnah’s study, unencumbered by anyone of note. Design was not there—I recall her excuse was something about finding it hard to be around Elhokar’s sister. Apparently it brought back fond memories of creeping the hell out of him until he got so paranoid he staged his own assassination. Cryptics, I tell you.

I wasn’t sad to see her go. Ivory, on the other hand, hung around on the windowsill—though as he was about the size of a speck of dust, it didn’t much bother me. Consent gets a bit messy with spren around; half of them are too much Investiture to properly grasp how humans think, and the rest are perverts. (I encourage you to place your bets on which are which.)

I can’t recall now what it was that had annoyed Jasnah so much (really, it could have been anything, including me), but I do recall that she was frustrated. So I did the obvious thing and murmured in her ear, “Is now the time for grading sex?”

She nodded, pulling up a pen and paper.

“I assume I’m the one being graded,” I said, leaning down to mouth at her neck. She always did like that.

She shivered. “Obviously.”

“You know,” I said, “you can be terribly predictable sometimes.”

“Stop talking, Wit, and touch me.”

See, even Kaladin agrees with that.

“Oh, yes, I forgot to ask: what kind of sex are you grading? Is this a ‘keep it in your breeches’ situation?”

“For now,” Jasnah said. “Beyond that, do what you like. Now get on with it, or there will be, oh, consequences.”

One of the things that always annoyed me about Jasnah was that it was terribly difficult to get her to be loud. Now, I’m not exactly loud in bed—instead, I’m verbose, which is arguably worse. Who wants their partner whipping out a thesaurus during sex? Well, if anyone, probably Jasnah. Which is why we’re perfect for each other. (Shut up, Kaladin.) But Jasnah was dedicated to her composure, and even in bed she had a hard time letting her defences down. And the sex was, well, not always the best. This night, though, she was rather more lax than usual.

“Aren’t you supposed to be taking notes?” I said, unbuttoning her havah with deft and devastatingly attractive fingers. (There are certain advantages to narrating your own erotica.)

“I don’t know how you expect me to write like this,” Jasnah said. She had a point: I was rather in the way. As such, I hurried up and undressed her down to her shift, cupping her breast through the fabric—which was soft and thin—so that she could feel the silk as much as me. I put my mouth to good use, sucking at the skin until it bruised, leaving her terribly hot and bothered. Unfortunately, Alethi clothes tended to hide hickeys, and even if they didn’t, no one would dare stare at Jasnah of all people. It was all tragically mundane. “Ah—better.”

“I live to serve,” I said, like a liar. “Ten out of ten?”

“Two out of ten, if you keep talking.”

I got the message. That was no reason to hurry up, though; I moved down her neck, idly kissing and biting, more interested in what Jasnah was doing than saying. True to form, she was taking notes—yes, with her left hand. Honestly, grow up! They were shakier than usual, incomplete and disorganised, which was rather satisfying.

“Wit,” Jasnah moaned. “Get on with it.”

Words I hear every day. I have yet to heed them.

“Alright,” I murmured, standing back. Definitely sexual frustration, rather than normal frustration.

I got to my knees beneath her desk (unlike Kaladin, I didn’t hit my head), and Jasnah wisely lifted her skirts out the way, leaving me to run a finger through her folds. She was, unsurprisingly, wet already.

“Do you not understand the meaning of hurrying up?” Jasnah hissed. “Wit, if you don’t touch me right now—”

I splayed my hands on her thighs, warm and eager, and sucked on her clit. Let me tell you, she liked that.

“Oh,” she gasped, as I laved my tongue over her folds, “oh—Wit—seven out of ten.” Which killed the mood somewhat. “Keep—”

I’m not sure what she said after that, I don’t speak incoherent moaning except for when I’m being railed. But I’m fairly sure it wasn’t recognisable as human language. Or singer, for that matter. Jasnah sank her right hand into my luscious locks, holding me closer, nearer. I hid a smile and licked slow circles over her, taking my time. I could hear the scratching of pen against paper, and redoubled my efforts, intent on driving her to distraction. She gasped, and the sounds of writing ceased.

“Wit,” she said in a strangled voice, “Wit, Wit—please.”

Well, who was I to disobey my king? At least not in the bedroom. I laved over her clit, gentle but sure, chasing the rush of pleasure. There would be other times for teasing. She moaned again, frantically canting her hips into my attentions. I’ll admit to stopping and staring, though not right then, because I think she would have killed me.

By this point she was trembling, and other such sexy things. You know, the real problem with erotica is just how repetitive it is. There’s only so many acceptable synonyms for thrust. But that’s beside the point. I redoubled my efforts until at last she came, with a bitten-off cry. I moved back and stood up, feeling smug, albeit slightly sore in the knees.

“So,” I said, leaning conversationally over the desk. “How would you rate me?”

Jasnah skimmed over her notes. “Eight out of ten. Admirable efforts, but you lose marks for unwarranted snark and taking too long.”

Those notes, by the way, ended mid-sentence. (They were also unreadably smudged. There are certain downsides to being left-handed.) It takes a lot to drag Jasnah away from writing, but I, genius that I am, managed it.

“Might my lady be convinced to let me retake the test? I believe I could improve my grade.”

“To obtain reliable data, we would need to repeat the experiment, certainly.”

I assume that sort of thing is sexy if you care about science.

I leant over to kiss her, only mildly awkward with a desk in the way. She was warm, and far gentler than you might believe. Softly, against my lips, she murmured, “I want you inside me, Wit.”

Let me tell you, I wasn’t so hard when I spent three years as a statue. And I was literally spraypainted with copper. “Well, there is a perfectly adequate wall on hand…”

Oh, look, Kaladin is retching. It’s only a story, Kaladin, you can leave any time you like. Besides, the desk was far more conveniently placed.

Maybe we should move on to something more pleasant?

Chapter Text

A very important part of sex ed that no one ever taught me was that you absolutely should not shag a Shard. It’s not pretty. The reason no one taught me this is that the Shards didn’t exist when I was a boy, but that’s not the point.

Cognitive Shadows aren’t as bad as Shards (they’re less likely to tear you apart limb from limb, for one thing), but some of them can be awfully tetchy.

Take Kelsier.

You might be wondering how I managed to have sex with a man who, at that point, could not access me in physical form. You might be—in fact, you probably are—thinking to yourselves that I’m just that good. In practice it went something like this.

“Fuck you,” Kelsier said, via seon, as I was off bothering the good people of Ashyn at this point. Yes, yes, it’s a ball of ash and flame, but the cities have a great view of all the ash and flame. And besides, never before have I had such a useful cold. Levitation was definitely worth the sniffles, though I’m not convinced diarrhoea was a fair exchange for super strength.

“Is that a request?” I said cheerily. Is this what they call a long-distance relationship?

“No!” he said. “I don’t like you, Hoid. No, worse than that, I hate you. I hate you more than anything.”

“Even more than nobility?”

“More than that.”

“I’m impressed,” I said.

“Why are you even here?” Kelsier snapped. “Shouldn’t you be off psychologically torturing—is that Ashyn?” 

“Congratulations on your skills of observation,” I said. “By the way, I heard that you’ve been bothering one Shallan Davar, and I just wanted to tell you that if you harm a single hair on her head, physically or emotionally, I will kill you all over again. I’ll find a way.”

“No wonder you’re the most divorced man alive,” Kelsier said, “if that’s your idea of flirting.”

“Ah, so you admit it’s flirting after all.”

“I never said it was mutual,” he said, in the voice of someone who had feelings for the most handsome man in all the cosmere but was too dead to admit it.

“Listen, do you want to have awkward long distance hate sex that makes both of us feel worse or not?”

“No,” Kelsier said, lying maliciously. “Touch yourself.”

“Alright,” I said. It wasn’t normally this easy to talk him into hate sex, and I was a bit thrown. “Are you even capable of—”

“No,” he said. “You know I’m sensitive about that.”

The audience is encouraged to guess for themselves what we were talking about. If you can come up with anything more humiliating than Kelsier’s nonexistent sex life (he had this in common with Kaladin), please feel free to start the rumour.

“Well, it was only a question,” I said, one hand firmly down my trousers. You see, the annoying thing about Kelsier is that he raises more than just my hackles. I suspect it’s linked to my crossed wires concerning pain and pleasure. Or maybe we’re a love story for the ages. Who can say?

“Yes, and your questions are terrible,” he said. “Now take off your clothes. The trousers, anyway. And are you still wearing those hideous love heart patterned boxers?”

“They’re the height of fashion in Pahn Kaln,” I said, also lying maliciously.

“I hate you,” Kelsier repeated. For some reason, this made me harder, which I tried not to think about too much.

“Been a while, has it?”

“Several hundred years,” he said, as I callously stroked myself in front of him, rubbing in his face just how dead his sex life was. “You see, this is evidence that there is no divine plan, because if there was, I don’t see why any god would let you live forever with a functioning”—at this exact moment I moaned, drowning out whatever it was that he said next—“and not me.”

“Have you considered that you don’t deserve it?” I said, continuing to palm my cock. I was enjoying myself far more than I rightfully should have, especially knowing that there was plague on the loose. All I’ll say is, talk about projectile vomiting.

“In detail,” he said. “How about a deal? For the duration of your horribly offensive masturbation, you have to do as I say. Once you’ve come, you can go back to harassing innocents. Deal?”

“Deal,” I said, though I could feel myself regretting it instantly.

“Right, keep touching yourself.”

“Can’t you say something more interesting?” I said. “It’s not very arousing, ‘keep touching yourself’. It lacks flair.”

“No,” Kelsier said.

I glared at him, though the effect was somewhat offset by the fact that I was on my knees and leaking in front of him. “Maybe there’s a reason you aren’t getting any, even with corporeal form.”

“What, because I don’t go on for reams about how handsome your eyes are?” he said, glaring at me with ugly sludge-brown eyes. “I hate you.”

“Hadn’t noticed,” I groaned, hips jerking. As it happens, even if the dirty talk is abominable, it doesn’t really matter when you’re the one getting yourself off.

I wouldn’t even call it dirty talk, really. It was more just Kelsier repeating, “I hate you,” until he was blue in the face, or avatar, or what have you.

“Are you close?” Kelsier said. “If not, then you should be.”

“I’ll take as long as I take,” I said through moans, which really wasn’t helping my point.

“I thought you were doing what I told you.”

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “Whatever you say. Of course. It’s just that you haven’t said much.”

“Keep doing what you’re doing, but don’t come,” he said, sounding distinctly peeved. So I did, unconsciously speeding up the longer I spent there, horribly hard and horribly aware I was being watched. “Are you close now?”

“It has been zero minutes since you last asked.”

“Fine.”

I don’t know if you’ve ever debased yourself in front of a dead guy who hates you in total silence, whilst the people around you gain access to magic via ear infections, but I don’t recommend it. By the end I was moaning helplessly, thrusting into empty air as Kelsier watched on. I could have come quite easily on my own, but of course I was forbidden from that.

“Now are you close?” Kelsier said.

“Y-yes,” I gasped, throbbing, sure that one wrong movement would have me tipping over the edge.

“Keep going until I tell you to stop,” he said. He honestly sounded bored. “Then I want you to stop touching yourself. I don’t care if you come, you just have to stop using your hands. And if you disobey, I will know.”

“Got it,” I said, though by that point my mind was a bit hazy. “I’m—shit—”

“True.”

“Not—like that—” I panted. “Fuck—gonna—”

I was so close. I was so close.

Right as I was on the verge of coming, he said, “Alright, hands behind your back.”

I cried out, removing my hand at just the wrong moment. I came hard, adequately ruining a lovely Ashyn rug with thick ropes of come, but I barely felt the pleasure I should have, because the bastard had timed things perfectly to ruin my orgasm. I whimpered, rocking into empty air, the tremors of what should have been a decent climax escaping me.

“I did warn you I hated you,” said Kelsier, then shut off the seon, leaving me alone, half-naked, and feeling wretched. I was certain I’d need another go to calm down, and I was certain he knew that too. He probably thought of me like that at night, not that it would be much use to him.

Worst. Sex. Ever.

Chapter Text

You’ll be pleased to hear that this one didn’t go ahead as planned.

What? You thought all my stories would be graphic sexual encounters? Of all the depravity. I have standards, you know. Not many of them, but I do pride myself on my storytelling, and for the most part it is perfectly clean. I wash my hands and everything.

I didn’t even particularly want to tell you this one, because it’s personally embarrassing in a way that the last three just aren’t. But you were going to find out about Lumar at some point, so…

Here goes.

Imagine a world. Now imagine it’s really fucked up. That was Lumar. The ocean was full of deadly spores that wanted to shred you to pieces. The land was full of idiots. Riina was full of herself. Horrible place, and yet somehow nicer than Komashi.

At the time, I was magically cursed and onboard a ship (called the Crow’s Song) which the crew had stupidly sailed over the spore oceans of mega death. Typically in this sort of situation I would be bored and horny. And indeed I was, but the nature of my … affliction … led to complications.

“I don’t understand bisexuality,” I said to a passing sailor, who for the sake of this story we shall call Doug. In fact, let’s call them all Doug, and save ourselves some time. (I promise you I have reasons for this. Maybe I’ll explain properly some other time.) “Is it being sexual twice a week, or being sexual once every other week? I think we need to be clearer about the whole thing.”

This Doug ignored me. They usually did. Which in this case was wise, because if I hadn’t been cursed I might have remembered that I was bisexual.

“Can’t you at least give me a hand?” I said. “I’m bored. Or, no, not a hand.” I looked the Doug by her side appraisingly up and down, though I’m pretty sure they thought I was going cross-eyed. This one had lost a shin (and corresponding foot, but I don’t think I need to clarify that) at some point or another, and had sensibly replaced it with a wooden stump. “Do you think you could peg me with a peg leg? Or would that be rude to normal pegs? I don’t think we consider the feelings of pegs enough. I mean, they don’t get a say in what they’re used for, and they probably don’t want to spend all their time on washing lines drying stupid clothes.” The Dougs just looked at me like I was insane, which in fairness I might have been. “All I’m saying is, if you tried soulcasting once in a while”—which obviously they were physically incapable of doing, yes, I know—“maybe you’d think about how you treat inanimate objects a bit more. Your peg leg has real self esteem issues about not being a proper plank of wood, you know.”

Storms, that was a lot of words. Don’t ask me about what I was wearing, by the way. I had completely lost any sense of taste, and had accordingly taken to wearing the ugliest things I could find. Stop laughing, Kaladin! My soul was in mortal peril! How would you feel if you got magically cursed by an Elantrian? Well, you’d probably feel fine about it, at least on a conscious level, because that’s how Riina’s curses worked. But you’d know, deep down, that something was terribly wrong, and—

Yeah, yeah, you don’t want to hear about my man pain. Back to the narrative.

The two Dougs stared at me like I’d suggested one of them try to anally penetrate me with a prosthetic, which of course I had.

“No?” I said, somehow acting as though I was the one suffering in this scenario. I mean, I was, but in hindsight I feel bad for them as much as me. They, after all, had to put up with me and their captain, which is quite the burden to put on anyone’s shoulders. “Guess I’ll just go paint my curtains a nice shade of sick. Can one of you get me some vomit?”

I should’ve asked Ulaam. He would have freely procured me some vomit, but I probably wouldn’t have wanted to know where he got it from.

“No?” I said. “Fine. Be like that.”

And, as promised, I went off to figure out how to make myself throw up over my curtains.

It was a bad, bad time.

Let’s move onto brighter pastures, shall we?

Chapter Text

So I said brighter.

About that.

Listen. You’re all familiar with Nalthis, right? Awakened tech, Breaths, Endowment, all that crap. So you’re probably familiar with Lifeless, too. Kind of creepy, how chill Nalthians are about dead bodies walking around, but, well, I can’t judge. I’m basically just a dead body with a bad sense of humour, when you get down to it. Well, not exactly, but…

Okay. So as we all know, sex conventionally involves lots of messy fluids. When it doesn’t, that’s when you know you’ve got problems. Sex also conventionally involves at least two people, who are conventionally all alive. When it doesn’t, that’s when you know you should yell at Kelsier to get out of your bed. (No? Just me?)

Well, Nalthis got around the ‘alive’ problem ages ago. Go ask Vasher, or whatever it is he’s calling himself now. See, Lifeless—which are just corpses with instructions—well, humans as a whole are pretty dirty-minded. We’re not all so horny we can’t get anything done (just ask Kaladin), but as a rule there will always be at least one sex joke at the science conference. So of course the gap between figuring out the Lifeless and figuring out how to get a blowjob from the Lifeless was about two months. Not that I was paying attention.

Yes, those are dead bodies. Yes, by some definitions that probably counts as necrophilia. It depends on your perspective. But honestly, that wasn’t even the worst of it. You know what the worst bit was? The blood. Lifeless don’t have blood. Instead, they have ichor-alcohol, which is different somehow. Super not fun and super not tasty. When you, ahem, ‘stab’ someone, things tend to get wet and sticky. When you stab a Lifeless?

I will not set the scene. I think the scene, horrifying as it is, has been sufficiently set already. I was drenched in ichor-alcohol. I was not sexually satisfied. I was feeling vaguely sick. And Vasher was laughing. Do you know how rare that is?

Quite frankly, I don’t recommend it.

Chapter Text

You know Braize? Or as you call it, Damnation? Threnody is worse than that. It has a whole continent called Hell, and that’s the nice bit. Yes, really, Damnation Squared is the nice bit. Anyway, all that pales in comparison to Canticle, which is just … horrible. Utterly horrible. I mean, I haven’t actually been there, but I got the dirty details from my erstwhile apprentice—once he stopped crying, that is.

(There are many passages in my life that I prefer not to talk about. We’ve already covered Lumar; Sigzil is another one of them. I … failed him, and rather badly at that. Yes, Kaladin, I do mean that Sigzil. He was there when I exploded all over your dad. Wait, what do you mean your dad never told you about that? Unbelievable.)

The first problem with Canticle is that the sun regularly sets it on fire. The second problem is that everyone on it is a prude. Threnodites—and their descendants—are like the anti-spren: it’s not so much that they don’t understand what perverts are as that they fed all their perverts to shades centuries ago. (So much screaming, and never the fun kind.) Spren love to spy on sex. Threnodites would rather do away with the process entirely.

Also, the people of Canticle could transfer Investiture to each other during sex. In the form of heat. Never tried it myself (you wouldn’t catch me dead on Canticle), but per Sigzil, it’s certainly an … interesting experience.

This is the first of my tales which does not involve me, and honestly, I’m glad for it. Not everything, I’m told, is about me.

I believe, in telling the story of Canticle, Sigzil generally omits the part where he had sex with a woman he barely knew by inserting some disclaimer about being too old and tortured to ever be loved. It’s a familiar spiel—I gave it once to Jasnah, and believe it or not, she completely ignored me. The truth (well, I say it’s the truth; it’s entirely possible the version I heard is equally wrong) is that most people just aren’t that insufferably noble. Sigzil is a good man, better than I’ll ever be, but even he isn’t Kaladin.

At this point in time, Sigzil was going by the name Zellion. That’s Threnodites for you. And yet, despite the accursed presence of Threnodites, the proposal itself was surprisingly romantic:

“Why shouldn’t we find a little comfort in the few hours remaining before we fly back out? They might be the last hours we have.”

Even more surprisingly, it was the Threnodite who made the offer. Her name was Rebeke.

“You want comfort?” Zellion said softly. (It’s always more romantic to say things softly, unless you’re dealing with me, in which case, harsher, please.) “Do you actually know what that entails? Most Threnodites tend to be…”

He trailed off, wondering what the polite (not to mention cross-cultural) way of saying ‘even more repressed than a Vorin Veden’ was. The people of Canticle wouldn’t have known a Veden if she’d calmly explained that Jah Keved was not a protectorate of Alethkar.

She flushed. “I understand the basics. I know we’re not married, but—”

“It’s alright,” Zellion said. “I can—show you.”

Having sex on the surface of Canticle would be an extremely unwise idea. So he added:

“On one of the ships, I mean.”

And then he remembered:

“But not in my room. Your sister’s in there.”

Well done, Zellion. Very smooth.

“My room, then,” Rebeke said, and led him that way.

Threnodites are gonna Threnodite, and the Beaconites weren’t much better. So of course Rebeke said, when they finally did find a bed, “We should say a prayer, before we—well—find comfort in the holy heat of another.”

Such lovely euphemisms, don’t you think?

Zellion managed a grin. “And that is?”

She took a deep breath. “Blessed Adonalsium, cast away your eyes for this night. Accept this soul and reward them for their flesh given. Sweet one in search of an equal, give me your heat that I may bless those who will follow us.”

Zellion felt a little of his warmth—and his soul—slip away. Now that he was Connected to Canticle, he could feel how the Investiture functioned—and how it changed him. Some might term this ‘temperature play’.

“That was … strange,” he said. “But not unwelcome.”

It had been a long time since Zellion had last been touched like that. Not a long time since he’d been meaningfully touched, that had happened about half an hour ago. But it’s hard to take any kind of break when you’re on the run from the Night Brigade.

“Should we…” Rebeke said. “I mean, how do we…”

“Well, you have to undress, first,” he said, and she blushed again, ducking her head. “Then … it depends. You haven’t heard of contraceptives, have you?” Her blank look told him all he needed to know. “Right, okay. Probably best not to—consummate anything.”

“I understand,” Rebeke said.

She slipped off her clothes, as did Zellion, and then took off her gloves. He took her hands, and … well, I’m told the feeling is indescribable, which doesn’t really help me in figuring out how to describe it, does it now? I would guess it’s like a gentle exchange of warmth from one person to another, back and forth, the same way most of sex is a back and forth. Giving tiny bits of fiery life with your kisses, rather than, you know, the more conventional way of making life.

“Good thing is,” he murmured, their foreheads pressed together, “you don’t need to consummate a marriage to make things feel good.”

He slid a hand between her thighs, sitting them both on the edge of the bed, and guided her hand over him. The night was quiet, punctuated only by remarks the like of, “See, if you angle your hips like that…” or, “Ow! I’m used to teeth, but I’ve never had to ask anyone not to use fire before!”

“That’s it,” Zellion said between kisses, “like that—and then you move your wrist like that—”

“Oh,” Rebeke said, “oh, I had no idea this could feel—oh!”

“Like I say,” he said in the aftermath, “there are other ways than consummation to make things feel good.”

“I was always taught that being too loud during intimacy would summon shades,” Rebeke said. “Is that not true?”

“I…” Zellion stopped dead in his tracks. “I have no idea. We don’t have shades, where I come from. Just annoyed friends.”

(Kaladin is glaring at me again.)

“That sounds nice,” she said.

“In some ways, yeah. But then there’s the everything else.” He got up, weary once more. “We should get going. We haven’t got much time.”

Rebeke put her gloves back on, sighing. “You’re right. But thank you for this.”

“It’s nothing.”

It wasn’t nothing. Nothing is ever nothing, except for nothing, which is nothing, which by definition makes it not nothing. But some people wouldn’t see their worth if it slapped them in the face. There’s only so much you can do for those sorts, and I guess sharing bits of your soul with them is one way to go about it.

I believe Sigzil did eventually figure out how to escape the Night Brigade, but it was a long time after this, and he certainly couldn’t have gone back to Canticle to find Rebeke—she was long dead by then. There are certain tragedies inherent to life; immortality doesn’t exacerbate them so much as deny you any way to escape them. Just ask Kaladin about literally anyone he has ever spoken to. Yes, even you. He might have invented Rosharan therapy, but that doesn’t mean he heeds his own advice.

Anyway, enough of Kaladin. Is this a very different tone to the rest of my stories? Well, yes. But I felt Sigzil deserved a certain nuance that Kelsier lacks. Sigzil, after all, actually deserves better than me, whereas Kelsier deserves far worse.

Look, I just figured I should give you something nice before I introduce a kandra. Is that so wrong of me?

Chapter Text

First order of business: defeat the horrible Elantrian in her Freudian ship. (For the curious: Freud is a small city-state on the planet Pavlov where all the swears revolve around sex. The people of Freud have a totally inaccurate reputation for making everything about sex. Look, it’s hard to translate specific cultural nuances, even for the seasoned traveller.) Second order of business: figure out what to do about the raging hard-on (yes, again) from being made to suffer. (Look, I wasn’t happy about it either. It was so hard to look Tress in the eye. So hard.)

Fortunately, I had Ulaam on hand.

Some have accused me of being lonely. But am I really? I mean, I have Ulaam. But then, he’s Ulaam. So those people might be onto something. Nonetheless, he remains my constant companion, and also, he is capable of having basically any genital configuration you could possibly want, as well as some you definitely don’t. Ever heard of vagina dentata? Just don’t. Once we got away from Lumar (lovely place, much more fun than Komashi), I decided that I really needed some stress relief. The problem was, he had reached the same conclusion—and his idea of relaxing was body modification.

So it was that I said to him, “I don’t care if you have seven vaginas, eight legs is just too many!”

“But I kept it to only three arms this time,” Ulaam said. “Also, your erection is very noticeable in those booty shorts.”

(Booty shorts with KELSIER WAS HERE written on the arse. Always read the fine print.)

“I’m going,” I said through gritted teeth, “to change clothes.”

“Good luck,” Ulaam said, already busy sawing off his legs. “There’s not much left of your wardrobe.”

“Fuck you!” I said, to the dulcet sounds of a blade squelching through flesh and bone. Horrible stuff.

“Just give me a moment to remove my spare legs,” he said, “and then I’m all yours.”

I spent a good half an hour rummaging in our wardrobe for better clothes, but Ulaam had carefully hidden or modified all my decent clothes. That just left me with a shirt I had stolen from Jasnah way back when (thanks to bonkers Rosharan heights, her shirts came down to my knees), a dressing gown (green, embroidered with golden dragons) that made me look frighteningly vague, and fluffy pink bunny slippers.

Still better than socks and sandals.

When I returned, Ulaam had reverted to a slightly more socially acceptable two arms and three legs. I couldn’t convince him to get rid of the third, and honestly I was too horny by that point to bother.

I suppose I should explain why, as an immortal ten-thousand-year-old more Investiture than flesh by now, I’m always so easily turned on. The answer is simple: I held the Dawnshard for Exist. For thousands of years. It really likes life, and it really hates violence. And sex is pretty much the antithesis of murder. (Unless you’re Kaladin, in which case they’re synonyms.) So whilst I wasn’t raring to go all the time, I was certainly more randy than was reasonable for someone trapped in a thirty-seven-year-old body.

Also, I’m a masochist, in the kinkiest sense of the term. Mind you, I’ve never met anyone else who suffered this effect of the Dawnshards, so it may just be another of my many issues.

“Hang on,” I said. “Have you put a mouth between your legs? You know it’s supposed to be someone else’s mouth, right, and not your own?”

“Between leg two and leg three, yes,” Ulaam said. “So far, it’s working better than the ear-arm idea. Besides, that way, you can do what you like, and I can—”

“What is it with kandras?” I said. “Why can’t you be obsessed with the geometrical perfection of tits like normal inhuman beings?”

“In what way is being the living incarnation of mathematics normal?” Ulaam said, with as much deadly serious disbelief as it is possible to have when you have three legs and have just finished cutting off the other five with a saw.

“I don’t know,” I said, “I just feel kind of weird about this whole thing.”

“Then you are welcome to take your humiliation kink somewhere else, where you will be less appreciated,” Ulaam said.

Design, by the way, was at this point trapped in the Cognitive Realm. It was a preventative measure by Riina, who didn’t want Design ruining things for her by blurting out all the answers. She doesn’t mind seeing me suffer, but she prefers it when she can control the narrative, let’s just put it that way.

“This is the strangest blowjob ever,” I groaned.

“Even stranger than when they were graded?”

You really don’t want to know how Ulaam found out about that. It involved a dragon, a deadeyed spren, and far too much moonshine.

“Alright, the second-strangest blowjob ever.”

“Do get on with it, before I change my mind about my genital configuration again.”

I closed my eyes and tried not to think about the … everything … of the situation as I sank my cock into somebody’smouth (I still haven’t found out whose it was, and I don’t want to), and moaned in a mixture of relief and disgust. Kandras are … bad is the wrong word for it. Deeply bizarre, let’s go with that. And yet, every time, they manage to catch me off guard with their weirdness.

This was a new low, but I hit rock bottom with astounding regularity. After more than ten thousand years of weirdness, I was getting to the point where nothing fazed me. Even the mouth where genitals should have been wasn’t that weird, not really. It was just a blowjob, like any other, and Ulaam had perfectly good control over his second tongue … and his second set of teeth.

“Ow!” I said. “Watch it!”

“My notes say that you like the pain,” he said.

Unfortunately, he was right. The teeth had gone straight to my dick, which went straight to my dick.

“I like a bit of pain,” I said, trying not to moan. It felt too much like giving in. “That doesn’t mean I want my dick bitten off.”

“Humans are so tediously limited,” Ulaam said, shaking his head. You know the old expression about eyes in the back of your head? He was strongly considering that. “I don’t understand what it is that bothers you so much about atypical body configurations. After all, plenty of animals have four or six or eight legs, and no one judges a dog for having four legs. Yet when we kandra do it—outrage.”

“I imagine,” I panted, “it’s because dogs and humans are—ah—separate things. Do that thing with your tongue again, oh—”

“With which tongue? I do wish you would be more specific.”

“With the one that’s—you know what I mean, just stop tormenting me!”

“Now why would I do that?” he said mildly, fiddling with a scalpel and a nose. “Do you know, Hoid, I have a complete list of all your antics on Lumar in this book here”—he picked up a journal—“oh, and a few other books besides. Your antics were thorough indeed. I intend to have them filed in both chronological and alphabetical order in due course, in order to make mocking you easier. Where should I start? Ah, yes, one of the more recent ones: ‘My gums sure do like a lickin’!’ That was hilarious. The amusement sustained me for days.”

“I’m glad you’re—so—” I gasped, thrusting wildly into some poor unfortunate soul’s mouth. I was loath to admit that his words were turning me on. But, unlike my entire life, my humiliation kink is no joke. “Amused—”

“I think I might even have chortled,” said Ulaam, “which is a rare occurrence indeed.”

Ordinarily I might have braced myself by putting my hands against my beloved partner’s legs. The problem was, he had too many legs, and I absolutely did not have enough hands. So instead I just fumbled around, moaning and bucking my hips and generally being a useless mess. Listen, you try being magically cursed.

“Gonna—” I gasped. “Jasnah—”

And on that deeply pathetic note, I came.

“Fascinating,” Ulaam said. “Even after all this time, you still can’t move on from one letter.”

“From one—woman,” I panted, “but in my defence, she’s—oh, why am I even arguing with you?”

“Masochism, I expect. May I have my legs back now?”

“Even better, you could remove them,” I said, standing back.

“Very well,” Ulaam said.

Too easy. I should’ve known to expect that he knocked his number of legs down to one. Oh well—at least he had a number of legs that some humans actually have, this time.

I see you all looking uncomfortable and/or aroused. That’s pretty much how I was feeling, too.

What’s next? Something less weird, you’re probably hoping.

Well, it’s less weird by your standards. The rest of the cosmere would agree to disagree. RAFO.

Chapter Text

Sorry, did you not know what RAFO means? Well, that’s not my fault. It stands for Read And Fuck Off. Not in this context, of course, but in theory it can. In this context, RAFO stands for Read And Find Out. Yes, I know you’re not reading this story, you’re listening to it. I apologise for misleading you. It will happen again.

So, lingerie made of crabs. What does that look like? Well, mostly it looks like lingerie, but made of crabs. Oh, who am I kidding—this is Roshar. You’re all familiar with the concept of crab lingerie. Half of you probably couldn’t imagine lingerie that isn’t chitinous. Your whole planet is Crab Central.

Unfortunately, you’re the only ones who think that way. Vasher had a rather different perspective.

“Where did you even find this?” Zahel asked me.

Oh, right, more context. That woeful beast which threatens to derail every perfectly baffling story. Must a tale be understood? Is it not enough to simply spew a bunch of nonsense at the unwary? I see you all think stories should make sense. In that case, I’m out of a job. RAFO, again.

Kidding, I’m kidding! The necessary context here is that Zahel is the name that Vasher uses when he’s on Roshar—which is most of the time. You’d know this, if you’d read Oathbringer.

“I bought it, entirely legally, from a merchant,” I shrugged. “He came thataway.” I pointed towards what I incorrectly believed to be Kholinar.

“He came from … Sebarial’s warcamp?” Zahel said, clutching at straws. (Better than normal. Normally he was clutching at swords.)

“No, Kholinar.”

“Kholinar is in the opposite direction.” He didn’t finish that sentence with an insult, but it was heavily implied.

“Ah,” I said. “Well, it’s not my fault the Alethi have a poor grasp of cartography. One of Elhokar’s maps must have misled me.”

Some people fail to grasp that it is quite possible to be so bad at something it seems implausible. In these cases, it stands to reason that such a person is in fact quite competent—because it takes true competence to feign such spectacular incompetence. It’s called the transitive property of ineptitude, and is the explanation for anything you’ve seen me do wrong ever.

Zahel, unfortunately, grasped all of this, and understood that I was no more than a common fool. A village somewhere was being deprived of an idiot.

“Right,” Zahel grunted. In this respect he’s much like Kaladin. I hope it’s not infectious. “Why are you telling me this?”

“I’ve heard that some people like to wear lingerie,” I said.

“I know.”

“In bed.”

“I know.”

I sighed. “And some people like when other people wear lingerie.”

“Yes, but why are you telling me this? Don’t you have the king to go bother? I heard he’s all the colours of Breath.”

This was one of those pithy Nalthian expressions for ‘gayer than a treeful of monkeys on nitrous oxide’. Many people, meeting Elhokar Kholin for the first time, formed three impressions: that he was Alethi, that he was an idiot, and that he was completely bent. I’ll leave you to fight amongst yourselves as to which of those were true.

(Shut up, Design! These are not ‘delicious lies’, he was a real person who really lived and who really spent all his time staring at other men! Have some respect.)

“If I limited myself to just bothering Elhokar,” I said, “I would get bored very quickly. It’s no fun picking on him; he gets all jumpy and starts muttering about triangular conspiracies.”

That, by the way, was Design. She had, ahem, ‘designs’ upon Elhokar.

Stop groaning. I’m hilarious.

“Sounds horrible,” Zahel said. “Why are you still here?”

I sighed deeply. “I am making sexual advances towards you. I really didn’t think I’d have to spell it out.”

“And what makes you think I’d want to fuck you? Some of us have standards.”

“Boredom,” I suggested. “Hatred. Desperate need to shut my mouth. Confused attaction. Desire to learn the secrets of the cosmere. Those are the top five reasons people gave me when I did a survey, though that was several hundred years ago now.”

Zahel looked at me, then at the crab garters. “Fine. But you’re wearing the carapace.”

“Here?” I said. “Or…”

He shrugged. “I’ve got a bedroom. Not much, but it’s enough.” I suspected he slept very little. “You?”

“Oh, I mostly share a bed with whoever is willing to put up with me,” I said.

“In other words, alone.”

“Harsh … but true. Let’s go with your room, then.”

His room was close to the Kholin training grounds, and indeed it was sparse. Well, apart from the double bed. But that was pretty much all there was to it. Some rope and a spare change of clothes had been thrown onto the bed, and that was where I abandoned my shoes, my breeches, and my dignity. I put on the crab garters, and sat on the edge of the bed, wondering what Zahel would do to me. I mean, what he would do next.

Zahel closed the door. Then he crashed his mouth against mine so fiercely that I could scarcely breathe, not that I needed to. I hadn’t been sure what to expect from Warbreaker the Peaceful—ironic, yes, it has been commented on once or twice—but after all this time, I hadn’t expected him to be so … urgent. Yes, that was the word for it.

By the time my mind had caught up with my body, he had pulled back, standing in front of me. He had this odd kind of look, half desperate, half confused, as if he barely understood what he was feeling. That’s my best guess, anyway—I’ve never been able to read him well.

“Kneel,” he said hoarsely. “I said kneel, wordsmith.” My body obeyed before my mind; lucky, that, because my mind was not working at all. “Colours, but you’re quick when you want to be.”

“I’m perfectly capable of obeisance,” I said. “It simply pleases me to be a brat.”

“I can tell,” he grunted. “Any normal man would’ve just said obedience.” You have no idea how much effort I put into translating my stories, by the way. Puns that worked in an obscure dialect of Hallandren thousands of years ago very much do not work in your languages. Even Alethi was very different thousands of years ago. “Hold him,” Zahel said, Awakening the coil of rope that I mentioned to you earlier. (I do so love narrative structure.) The command was unexpectedly intimate, and I gasped in quiet surprise as I found my arms tied behind my back, leaving me bare but for a long white shirt and stockings. Oh, and the titular lingerie.

I was also hard. But you probably knew that by now.

“You have a clever mouth,” Zahel said lowly, “and you’re right. I do desperately wish you would shut it. So prove it.”

He undid the rope that held his trousers (if they could be called that) up. I don’t know if he had a thing for rope, or if that was just my sordid imagination. In that moment, it hardly mattered. He must’ve liked what he saw, because he was as hard as I was, his cock jutting against his hips at a harsh angle. I ran my tongue down the base of his shaft, and was rewarded by a long, low moan.

“Long time?” I said cheerily.

“Just—get on with it,” he groaned. I obliged and swiped away the pearly bead of precome that had gathered at the tip of his cock, and watched in satisfaction as he gasped, cock twitching.

Then I took him into his mouth, and stilled. He shouted, hips jerking erratically. I quietly waited for him to calm down, for I have the patience of a Herald. (Thankfully minus the insanity.)

“Colours,” he muttered. “Maybe it has been too long.”

Being as he was Returned, he could’ve had whoever he wanted if he’d just stayed in Hallandren. But no, he just had to go and ruin everything by meddling in the affairs of other planets. Despicable.

His hand settled in my hair, and he fucked my mouth with rough, messy thrusts, which was fine by me, because crab lingerie sounds like a great idea until you’re kneeling on it. I swear I can still feel the scars. I moaned when he yanked on my hair, grumbling all the while; in turn, he cried out, hitting the back of my throat. (What? You really thought I’d have a gag reflex, after more than ten thousand years? As if.)

“Colours,” he said, “colours”—have I ever mentioned what a stupid curse that is—“no wonder they call you silvertongue, you’re a fool idiot but you have—” I hummed around him, using what little leverage I had. “Colours!”

I could tell he was close, though not because of the swearing. Vasher just does that. He was moaning, inhibitions lost, thrusting angrily into my mouth. It did help that I didn’t need to breathe.

“You’re a fool, Dust,” Zahel rasped, his fingers tightening in my hair, “I’ve always known that. But by the colours, it’s worth shutting you up. Never knew you were capable of it.”

Mostly because I had had my love of words temporarily replaced by my love of sucking dick, and it’s notoriously hard to speak with your mouth full.

“Ah,” he moaned, “just—like that—” As abruptly as he had started, he pulled out, furiously pumping his shaft. He tensed for a moment, balls tightening—and then, with no warning, he came quite rudely over my face, covering me with ropes of sticky come. And it wasn’t like I could do anything to help myself, what with my hands tied. “Colours, you look pretty like that. I see why the king keeps you.” I said nothing, stumbling to my feet. “No? Nothing to say? Not like you.”

“Fuck me,” I begged. “Please.”

You’re probably wondering how Vasher would even go about that. I mean, most ordinary people have refractory periods to worry about. If there’s one advantage to being Returned, though, it’s the stamina.

“On the bed,” I added. “My knees hurt.”

It’s all well and good to wear crab lingerie, but it’s another thing entirely to kneel in it.

He snorted. “Complaining about your aching joints? You might be old, but you don’t look a day over twenty.”

“Excuse me,” I said, “I’ll have you know I didn’t stop ageing until I was thirty-seven. Also, carapace digs into flesh. I have no idea how singers stand it.”

“Well, they probably don’t get down on their knees nearly as often as you do,” Zahel said.

“Are you calling me a slut?”

Not that that’s in any way a bad thing. The great Adolin Kholin was a slut, and no one complains about him.

“I’m not saying anything that hasn’t already been said about you,” he shrugged. “Look, just get on the bed before I kick you out.” I did as I was told, making very sure to lie on my back and not my front. “Got any oil?”

“Better,” I said. “Proper Scadrian lube. The nice stuff. For—reasons.”

He frowned down at me. “Right. ‘Reasons’.”

“Don’t worry, it doesn’t contain any metal, or anything like that.”

“And where is it?”

It may simply be that my shirt had pockets. Whatever helps you sleep at night. Either way, I handed him a bottle of lube, since I’m all for keeping my sex life morally upstanding. Unfortunately, Roshar back then didn’t have the traffic light system, because it didn’t have traffic lights, or any need for traffic lights, or indeed any idea what traffic lights were.

“There you go,” I said.

Zahel drizzled lube over his fingers. (My erotica, my tedious repetition of verbs.) “Should’ve kept Nightblood, just to shut you up.”

“There are much better ways to—” I gasped as I felt the head of his cock press against my hole. I’m certain that Vasher had heard of fingering, he just chose to ignore it. He probably thought I liked the pain. (He was right.) “To—”

I whimpered as he slid into me. For anyone else, it probably would have been unpleasant. I, however, am well-versed in taking it up the arse, and as such only felt a mild burn of pain before it was replaced by dull pleasure, and the satisfaction of being filled.

“Amazing,” he said, drawing out. “You really did shut up.”

“I’m still here, you kn—ah!” I shuddered as he rammed into me, with absolutely no respect.

“What was that?” he said, pounding into me hard so that I wouldn’t be able to do anything so terrible as gather my thoughts.

He had his hands on my hips, holding me down; I should mention that at this point I still had my hands tied, though Zahel was nice enough to allow me to have my hands tied in front of me this time, so that I wouldn’t have to lie on my elbows. Charmer. That, of course, meant that I was pretty much at his mercy.

“I,” I panted, as he found just the right place, again, and again, and again, “I—that is—”

“Nice try, Dust,” he growled, “but this time, you lose.”

Lose? Lose what? My dignity, I presume. I mean, it’s kind of hard to look put together when you’re lying on your back, tied up and covered in another man’s come whilst he rails you.

“Please,” I moaned, “please—”

He somehow managed to make it look as though I was inconveniencing him, when, again, he was the one tying me up.

“You want a hand?”

I nodded as best I could. My cock—hard, leaking, et cetera—spoke for itself.

“Maybe later,” he said. “Asshole.”

I responded with an articulate whimper.

Honestly, the most irritating part was that I had no leverage. If I’d just been able to move my hands, the situation would’ve been a lot more manageable. As it was, I was stuck, too distracted to talk my way out of the situation and not close enough to come. On the bright side, I had an excellent view of Zahel pounding into me. Typically, the Returned look tall, dark, and handsome—or in Vasher’s case, tall, light, and handsome. However, blonde men are evil. As such, he tended to keep his hair a shoulder-length dark brown, especially when on Roshar. And he had a short, scruffy beard … and he was very hairy.

So yes. Excellent view of Zahel. Very enjoyable, very distracting.

Very not helping.

“Please,” I said. “I need—ah—need you to—touch me—”

“Fine,” he said. “Whatever.”

We firmly believed in the importance of properly negotiating our kinks.

He reached down to stroke my cock, and that was about it for me. I cried out, coming hard under him, back arching. It is necessary that I be properly railed at least once a century, or else I start malfunctioning. That definitely did it for the next hundred years. Zahel pulled out, and finished off all over me with a predictably grim expression, which left me sticky with about three difference instances of come. Let me tell you, that was an interesting one to explain to His Deeply Heterosexual Majesty, Elhokar Kholin.

(We’ll get back to Elhokar later.)

“Worth it?” I said, still short of breath.

“If you ever tell anyone about this—”

“I know, I know, you’ll strangle me with an Awakened rope. Speaking of, could you perhaps undo said Awakened rope?”

“Sure,” he said, “one moment.” And with that, he took back his Breaths—then tied my wrists again. “You wriggle out of every situation, one way or another. I’ll admit, I’m looking forwards to seeing how you get out of this one.”

“You are aware I can Awaken things, I hope,” I said.

He glared at me. “I’m a bitter old fuck, not an idiot, Dust. Tonight was worth it to see you forget your words. But it wasn’t anything special. Don’t forget that.”

Honestly, the main thing I got out of that night was that crab lingerie was a deeply stupid idea. And also that he had been secretly in love with me the whole time—just like Kelsier. Wait, why are you looking at me like that? Don’t try to kill me, you’ll just be wasting your time. Was it the crab lingerie that did it?

Unbelievable. Have none of you heard of lace?