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Alt text: A digital illustration of Ashrah and Nitara by Seph (@goethial.bsky.social). It depicts the two characters back to back, holding hands, as they prepare for another fight, Ashrah brandishing Datusha, her sentient, keris-shaped sword, and Nitara summoning her dark magic. One of Nitara's wings stands behind Ashrah, almost like a shield, while the other is behind Nitara herself, in shadows. Nitara is about a head and half taller than Ashrah.
A knock at the door startled Ashrah out of her recently discovered bliss. She swung her legs out of the bed and diligently pushed her trousers back up and tidied her kebaya before heading for the door.
Nitara stood on the other side, her pale face flushed as if she had flown here all the way from the prow of the ship. But she had not been outside, for she was not wearing her heavy, fur-lined coat, and Ashrah had to blink to move her attention from the captain’s muscular arms, so prominent in her recent waking dreams, to her face.
“Did you locate more corrupted gates, captain?” Ashrah asked, ready to summon Datusha from whatever Infernal pit it had gone into hiding.
“Uh, no, I…” The flustered nensii before her little resembled the fierce and glorious figure that had helped Ashrah discover a new form of enjoyment with her own body. But whatever the reason for this behaviour, she realised that it also had its charms. “I was thinking I could show you more of the ship, and…” She spied inside the cabin, probably expecting to find Datusha there. “Are you busy?”
Ashrah smiled internally. Finding her balance meant accepting a wickedness inside her, and she was now coming to terms with the bursts of joy she felt at indulging that wicked side from time to time. This was quickly turning into one such occasion. “I am not. I just finished touching myself for the first time. I believe you nensiis call it masturbation.”
Nitara’s eyes widened. “I see…” She took a step back, then forward again. Cleared her throat. “Did… did you enjoy it?”
“More than I expected. Particularly once I started thinking of you.”
“You…” She raised an arm. Dropped it. “You’re fucking with me.”
Ashrah allowed the smile to show on her face. “Perhaps a little.”
Nitara stared at her, her gaze sharpening as the seconds passed in silence. Then, she moved towards the cabin. In response, Ashrah stepped back, and folding her wings, the captain crossed the threshold, the door clicking shut behind her.
“You’re serious? You were truly thinking of me?”
Even as she asked the question, Nitara took one slow step after another, her wings unfolding until they occupied that entire section of the cabin, and in that dance, they approached the bed.
“I still am.” Ashrah’s legs hit the bed, and she had barely fallen onto it before the captain appeared on top of her. Panting, Nitara rubbed her nose across Ashrah’s neck, her mouth grazing the sensitive line of veins. “I thought you wanted to show me the ship.”
“I lied.” A giggle escaped Ashrah as lips caressed her neck, her collarbone. “I smelt you.” Nitara pushed the kebaya open, the pendants popping out, and bit Ashrah’s exposed shoulder—not enough to draw blood, but enough to stoke Ashrah’s longing to feel those fangs inside her again. “All the way from my cabin.” Her tongue carved a path from Ashrah’s shoulder to her chest, a kiss placed on the hollow between her breasts. “It was driving me fucking wild.”
Without question or hesitation, Nitara dragged Ashrah’s trousers back out. Ashrah let out a yelp as a draught glided past her legs and showed her how wet she was. Again.
Staring with a glint in her emerald eyes, Nitara lowered herself to her knees, a position not unlike the one the Shadow Priestess and the faithful adopted when praying to Envasar. She nuzzled Ashrah’s inner thigh, then breathed in, deep and loud, and that alone made Ashrah’s legs quiver.
“Fuck,” the captain hissed. “All of this… for me?”
She grabbed Ashrah’s thighs with each of her large hands. Their eyes met, the hunger in the nensii’s black pupils making Ashrah’s centre throb as if she had grown a heart not in her chest, but there, between her legs.
“I wanted you,” she whispered, as if saying it louder would break this spell they were under.
“Wanted?”
“No. I want you. I need you.”
With a predator’s smile, Nitara licked a path from Ashrah’s entrance to her clitoris, then blew a puff of cold air that sent vibrations all over Ashrah’s body like the plucked string of the erhu. Her head fell onto the mattress, losing sight of Nitara, though all her other senses were keenly connected to the nensii.
“You taste so good,” Nitara whispered against her sensitive skin, and Ashrah had no choice but to believe it as the captain’s tongue lapped and swirled against her folds with the voracity of a creature sating her thirst after days of privation.
Ashrah moaned, her legs reflexively wanting to close and squeeze but held apart by strong hands. Nails dug into soft flesh, a droplet of blood running down brown skin, but Nitara did not even notice it, for Ashrah realised the nensii’s desire for her was too great for her to care, and that precious knowledge made her seek the nensii’s hair and clutch it with the same force she would her sword during a battle.
An anchor that proved valuable as Nitara’s mouth closed around her clitoris and sucked in fast, merciless pulls. Ashrah cried out, digging the nails of her free hand into the bed, her legs looping around the nensii’s back as Nitara lifted her hips and slid one finger inside.
“Nitara…” Ashrah moaned, the name having never tasted so sweet in her mouth, and then it splintered into a shrill whine as the nensii curved her finger upward, hitting a spot that made Ashrah see the stars in the Vaeternian sky.
With one last kiss, Nitara stood, her mouth and jaw glistening, and climbed onto the bed. Ashrah pulled the nensii on top of her, capturing her lips in hers, tasting herself in the captain’s mouth, the tips of the fangs poking at her tongue.
Nitara melted into the kiss, squashing her smaller lover under her bulk, and Ashrah delighted in the sensation of muscles pressing against her, wrapping around her.
Pulling away, Nitara leaned her forehead against Ashrah’s. “Can I tell you a secret?”
“Of course.”
“I’ve been dreaming of you ever since I first drank your blood in the Netherrealm.”
Ashrah explored the nensii’s eyes, as vast and honest as the lush forests she had seen while travelling aboard the Vermilion Star. She, too, had felt something stir within her back then, though she did not have the words to describe her feelings beyond the violence and the bloodshed that had determined all her Pulses. But she had learnt much more since then, and much of it was thanks to this wonderful creature in her company. “You dreamed of me?”
Nitara smiled. “I still do.”
And that smile, and that gentle voice, flooded Ashrah with warmth—not the kind that burnt in the Torch in her chest, but one that yearned for this nensii; to fight by her side, to be by her side. To love and be loved.
Ashrah stroked Nitara’s cheeks. “Wake up. Open your eyes. I am real, I am here, and I will not go away.”
That brought a grin to Nitara, the kind that exposed her fangs. She reached down to her sash and the laces of her trousers while Ashrah unbuttoned the grey shirt, and when both came out, she stared, without even trying to hide her awe, at the statuesque woman before her.
Of Nitara’s physical might, Ashrah never had any doubt: she would have never fallen in love with anyone lesser, anyone who could not defeat her in battle and earn her respect as a commander. But the clothes, particularly those heavy cloaks the Vaeternian cold demanded, inevitably obscured the view, and to bear witness to the captain’s form, now unobstructed, felt akin to witnessing a hero of legends coming to life right in front of her.
With one hand, she traced the lines across Nitara’s abdomen, marvelling at their sheer strength, and with the other, she fondled one of the arms she had watched tearing limbs apart with such ease and splendour.
Nitara spread Ashrah’s legs apart, stroking her penis as she looked over the demon below her. As their eyes met, Nitara summoned a mass of shadows in her free hand and fired it at the wall. It grew, forming a dark curtain over the entire cabin, and instinctively, Ashrah knew what that meant.
No one could hear them.
“I want you to cry for me as much as you cry when you’re out there, fighting,” Nitara confirmed her suspicions.
“We shall see if you deserve it.”
Smirking at the challenge, Nitara settled herself between Ashrah’s legs, rubbing the tip of her member against Ashrah’s entrance. And then she pushed in.
Ashrah gasped, everything she had imagined about how this moment would feel disintegrating in the fire of reality—a fire that burnt much more intensely, much hotter, than she had foreseen.
“Is this all right?” Nitara asked, and when Ashrah tried to answer, all that came out was a groan that drew a smile out of the nensii.
Rather than using words, she raised her hands to Nitara’s belly, drawing little dents in the majestic skin with her nails, cruising in the waves created by the nensii’s laboured breathing.
Nitara bent down over Ashrah, their mouths clashing in a tangle of tongue and teeth. Blood trickled into the mix from a cut on Ashrah’s tongue, but she did not care: quite the contrary, she hoped it would entice the nensii. And judging by how Nitara squished her mouth against Ashrah’s, it had worked.
But she was not yet ready to give them both that release. A little bit of torture, she learnt, was welcomed in such situations.
And so she placed her palms against Nitara’s chest, right at the tattoo representing House Coliary, and pushed her away. Expression flashing from surprise to delight, she allowed Ashrah to guide her to the pillows. She laid her head atop one and grinned as Ashrah straddled her, a satisfied cry bursting out as she entered Nitara.
“Goddess, you’re perfect,” she whispered, like a prayer, her hands following the line of protruding bones along Ashrah’s waist, roaming up her torso, cupping her breasts.
Ashrah hummed behind a smile, savouring the pleasure and the echo of those words: she was perfect, exactly as she was.
With that sweet ache building once more inside her, Ashrah leaned down over Nitara, her hair spilling over the nensii and mingling with her red curls. She rocked against the nensii, breathing and moaning into her lover’s long ear as she quickened the pace.
“Fuck…” Nitara whimpered, moving her hands to clutch at Ashrah’s bottom, her breath growing haggard.
It was then that Ashrah whispered, “Bite me.”
Eyes shooting wide open, Nitara lifted Ashrah and laid her back down on the bed before thrusting inside her again. Ashrah cried out, a warrior close, so close to her victory, and tilted her head back, exposing her neck.
And there, without ceremony, Nitara sank her fangs, and Ashrah howled as pain and pleasure clashed inside her, two distinct feelings that merged to conceive a mind-numbing, soul-fulfilling ecstasy.
They were both still shaking when Nitara removed her penis and her fangs, licking the area she had bitten to close the small punctures. Sweat plastered red curls to her face when she lifted her head just enough to look at Ashrah with a foolish smile that Ashrah was certain mirrored her own. “Was this better than your imagination?”
“Was this better than your dreams?”
“Abso-fucking-lutely.”
“Abso-fucking-lutely,” Ashrah echoed, and after everything they had done and gone through, it was hearing her cursing that broke Nitara. They fell into belly-aching laughter, a most pleasant conclusion to this new adventure of theirs.
If only a voice had not psychically cried out, “Oh, for all the fucking Hells! I’ll find a new wielder!”