The Two Great Lovers: Orc-Claims (Patreon)

The gentle slide of cloth on polished steel.  The twitter of distant birdsong.  Warm sunlight streams in around the room.

A long happy sigh fills the room from the couple curled up on the floor facing the great windows, showcasing the mountain cabin's overlook of the Dissualt Valley far below.  Oborro leans over Lykopis' shoulders as she sits cross-legged on the floor, polishing the blade of her fearsome blade, Howl, to remove any lingering stains.   The Bard's knees are barely still touching the fur rug that decorates the sitting room floor, all his weight laying across the wide, powerful shoulders of the Orc maiden he shares this place with.  She feels it not at all, as barely present as a cloak worn much the same way.

All save for one little part of him that keeps twitching and tapping against her repeatedly, showcasing just how much he really is enjoying their 'cuddle' time.

"Bard"

"Hmm?"

"Your ear is twitching."

"Is it?  I hadn't noticed."

"It's tickling me."

"I'm sorry, my goddess.  They just...do that when I'm excited."

"Excited huh?  Does me cleaning my axe really do it for ya?"

"That's not what I meant," Oborro laughs.

"Imagining all those beasties and such I've used it to carve up?"

"Oh yes; blood and gore are the height of romantic overtures."

"I knew there was always something Orcish about you."

"The only Orcish I care to always have about me is you."

A grunt of laughter.  "Bards and Sweet-talk.  As constant as Blood-rage and sunrise."

"Dwarves and beer?"

"Dragons and hoarding."

"Ajax and his ego?"

Both laugh.

"Same difference."

Another long, happy sigh.

"I just love you so much.  It's hard to contain it.  I'll try to keep them from wiggling."

Lykopis glances out of the side of her yellow, huntress eyes at the beaming, sleepy Bard draped across her.  Despite herself, a small smile comes to her scarred lips, her short tusks protruding from above their full, luscious shapes.  Again, his eartip shivers against her warm, dark grey cheek.  The tiny gleam of metal flickers there in the corner of her vision.

"Not saying I mind it over much," she idly consoles him.  "Just that if it keeps up, I'll have to do something about it."

"Hmmm..." sighs the Bard.  "Do as you like, my Mad Queen.  So long as I can stay here with you like this just a little longer."

Soft words leave her in a whisper, a tone shared with none other than him, a gentleness to the She-Wolf of Rende that only her Bard ever hears.  "I'd have you stay much longer than a little" she breathes into his ear.

"A year?" he teases sleepily.

"Longer."

"A lifetime."

"Longer."

He nuzzles in happily against her, hugging tighter around her shoulders and neck but bothering her not.  "Forever?"

Her chuckle is rich, deep, and low.  "To the End, but after that we can renegotiate terms."

Full lips trail over his cheek, the rasp of her tusks scraping as gentle as a blade of grass over his perfectly smooth skin, up and across the silvery scar tissue of his oft-hidden burn-mark.  A shudder wracks through him; never has anyone been allowed so close to him, only ever her.  His one, the only one in the world for the Changeling Bard.  He who crossed the world to find her, without even knowing her face or name, only knowing that they were destined to love.  They who found one another in the most unlikely of places.

She a warrior monarch without equal, who came to his city on a path long in its making, a Barbarian Queen indignant against a world that rebuked her a place in it.  He an entertainer running a simple tavern, quiet and weary from his world-wandering and adventuring.  She fought armies and monsters, he faced gangs and criminal masterminds.  A song for the fate of a city.  A heart for a heart, both beating for the other half of themselves.

For that moment, however, they are more, and nothing more, than who they are together.

"Bard..."

"Hmm..."

"Your ear is still twitching..."

An instant later, his calm and sleepy composure shatters.  There is a small flash of movement, the tiniest hint of a stinging pain that quickly swells to burning pulses.  Her sharp teeth grip the Claimplate attached to his ear, tusks slotting perfectly into the holes there.

His hands knot into shuddering balls, his back spasms into full-on tremors.  Heat blossoms against his face, her hot breath blazing through him to his very core.  He can feel the slight tug of her teeth's custom-made hold on his pointed ear, the sliding rasp of her tongue behind those scarred lips, the sound of her tiny growl that echoes inside of him as if he were a vast empty cavern.  A sound that is not anything close to eligible speech leaves him.

"Never let it twitch for anyone else but me," his great beast purrs.  He cannot nod with her toothy hold upon him but she knows his obedience is hers.  "Mine."  The bite intensifies, her grip tighter on his tender flesh, before she releases it at last.  Then her lips dart in again, soothing heated, nearly cherry-glowing skin; a stark contrast to its usual silvery paleness.  His tender lobe is sucked into that tusk-toothed mouth, nibbling gently, her lips framing his flesh.

"Always..." he breathes.

Her chuckle is rich and the only sound worth listening to as she finally releases her little quivering Bard and returns to polishing her weapon.  She sees their reflections in the steel, such stark opposites, such a perfectly mirrored mirrored pair.

The light to her darkness.

The song to her heart.

Her Bard.  His Barbarian.

"I love you too."

The Two Great Lovers, reborn.