Chapter Text
“stars, hide your fires;
let not light see
my black and deep desires.”
macbeth [1.4.52-53]
He wonders at the feeling in his chest as he turns the page on the tome.
The pages are thin vellum, fragile beneath his crystalline fingertips as he traces the archaic sigils, sacred geometry and ancient spellwork.
The Crystarium guards are finishing their evening watch and preparing for their debrief. The fires in the Crystalline Mean have gone dark. The looms have stilled; the anvils, quieted. The Wandering Stairs bustles with chatter and drinks and laughter. Beq-Lugg snores quietly into their tea across the table, their small hands still over their open book.
The Warrior of Light is away on business in Eorzea, and it has taken all of Raha’s restraint to keep from wondering where she is, what battles she is facing, and when she will return.
Raha rereads the passage over and over, whispering the words gently to himself as if it would make it more believable.
The feeling is light and fluttering in his heart.
And he never thought he would feel it again.
Though you had departed in good spirits, you cannot help but feel everything was coming to an end.
You were gone for a fortnight, and by some blessing, the passage of time was more-or-less the same for the First. The Exarch—he kept his title, as the Crystarium was far more used to it than any other—told you there were some inconsistencies between the exact minutes, but it was as much the same as could be hoped for.
He greets you with one of those shy smiles as you step out of the portal, guarded and careful as he regards you.
“’Tis good to see you, my friend,” he tells you warmly. Self-consciously gripping his staff, his eyes lingering on you.
You begin to feel the cold, uneasy feeling—a feeling which would make its home deep in your chest—when you rush forward without thinking into his arms and burying your face in his soft robes, inhaling his familiar scent of well-loved books and lavender.
He laughs in rare surprise, holding you close and tucking your chin underneath his head as he presses a kiss to the top of your head.
“How sorely I have missed you,” he whispers into your hair.
You try to banish the sinking feeling in your bones as you lean forward on tip-toe to catch his lips with yours.
The feeling grows in his chest. The crystal crawls over his skin, claiming freckles, scars, muscle and sinew. The next day is the first time the Exarch loses consciousness while working. A certain strange frenzy had overtaken him, and he had haplessly agreed to donate blood to the endeavor, leaving his lunch untouched.
One moment he was feeling the warm drip of his blood falling down his arm and into the vial, and the next he woke on the floor, Beq-Lugg shouting in the distance for a chirurgeon.
Captain Lyna sent him to rest with one glacial look, arms crossed and lupine ears folded down. The very picture of familial worry and anger.
He takes his books with him to his quarters. His meal sits neglected and cold as he pours over the tomes.
The Exarch stares at his crystallized hand, phosphorescent and glimmering as it lays on the desk, and wonders what it will be like to touch her with the Spoken hands he was born with.
You feel it that evening when the Exarch disrobes in his quarters. As the cloth falls from his shoulders and pools at his waist, you notice the crystal has worsened. Like a parasite, it spider-webs up his arms, lacing over the broad planes of his chest. Even in the darkness, the facets glimmer like the gemstones in the Tempest’s undersea caverns, beautiful and deadly.
He is thinner, almost frightfully so, his tightly corded muscles thrown into sharp relief by the low-burning fire.
You feel it when he crawls into bed with you, his hands trembling and cold, as if he had stood outside in a snowstorm. You laugh when he shoves them under your clothes, but it doesn’t ease the thread of fear.
He buries his face into your shoulder, sighing softly against your skin. You feel so many questions and reprimands on the tip of your tongue.
You quiet them all for the sake of a little more stolen time.
It is Alisaie who points out the disparity in the number of vessels. The feeling has grown, clawing its way up his throat like the crystal overtaking his body. He lets a whisper of it out when he admits his so-called “trial.”
But he fears if he voices more that it will disappear entirely, as if the fates themselves would turn and conspire against his wishes.
For the Exarch has never wished for something so selfish, and he does not know how to bring it into being.
The Warrior corners him after. She paces the floors of the Ocular, silent and ruminating.
“Why would you hide this from me?” she whispers finally.
Her words cut worse than any blade, and he will suffer that pain time and time again.
“I could not be certain,” he manages. “I am… still uncertain—“
“When will we stop trading in secrets?” she snaps, clenched fists drawing tight to her sides. Her eyes glimmer like ghostfire. “Did it end when I knew your name? Will it end when you return the Source? What will it take for—“ And she is overcome, burying her face in her hands as she muffles a frustrated, choked sob.
He rushes to her before he can stop himself, stroking her back as he takes her into his arms.
At the last of his days, the Exarch has no words for her, for none can possibly express the depth of his regret—
And his hope.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers uselessly, over and over into her hair, “I’m so sorry.”
He has no more secrets to give her, so he must ply her with apologies and pray it is enough til the bloody dawn.
You know it’s coming when he collapses to the crystal floors. Raha clutches his stomach, hissing with pain and struggling to bring himself upright with his staff. The crystal creeps ever onward, claiming ilms of skin before your very eyes.
“I cannot keep up with you,” he manages. “And you can’t afford to make a stand here.”
He comes to on trembling legs, standing between you and the oncoming battle. “Go!” he barks.
“No,” you plead, “Raha, I can’t—“
You can’t abandon him. Not yet.
The Exarch turns to you with a crooked, confident smile. “Rest assured, you haven’t seen the last of me. I wouldn’t dream of playing my trump card save in your presence.”
He speaks with the cocky surety of a younger man. A boy with mismatched eyes and dreams of the ancients.
You squeeze your eyes tight, and before you can bring yourself to regret it, you dash up the stairs.
It is not your faith in yourself that keeps you running, but your faith in him.
And your duty to bring him safely home, no matter what.
You cannot deny it.
The Crystal Exarch is dying.
His hands, no longer mismatched but both entirely crystal and cold, grip yours tight, folded over the blood-encrusted crystal. That such a small item could contain such hope and importance. That it would contain everything G’raha Tia had ever done, had ever meant.
“If I were to tell you that this isn’t the end,” he murmurs, “that we will meet again—would you believe me?”
His voice fractures, soft and unsure. As if he was looking to you for reassurance.
You nod, tears falling down your cheeks and onto your entwined hands.
And you press a gentle kiss on his cold lips, savoring the taste of him one last time.
You feel it as you roam the halls of the Crystarium that night, walking without thinking, your feet taking you down to the Hortorium. The mysterious tree is no longer blossoming, but there are tiny buds dotting its garlands, like shriveled hearts waiting to burst into blossom.
While the Crystarium would live on, imbued with the Exarch’s indomitable spirit and everlasting hope…
… it feels empty. Quiet and tomb-like, as if a city in mourning.
Over the months, it had become something of a second home to you. You found comfort and sanctuary every time you stepped from the portal back into this realm. But you realize now, clutching the blood-encrusted crystal to your chest, that it wasn’t the Crystarium itself which was home to you…
… but instead G’raha Tia.
And with his disappearance, so too did that memory of belonging fade.
“Warrior.” Ryne’s voice is soft in the distance. “Are you ready?”
You give one last lingering look to the Crystarium’s tree. To its inextricable boughs, knotted into one another, and the crystal at the very heart of it.
“It feels different,” you finally whisper.
Ryne closes her eyes, auburn lashes sweeping against her cheek.
“He won’t be gone long.”
“Who… are you?”
His voice is soft, concerned. His own scarlet eyes, Allagan sanguine, stare back at him. Scarlet hair, untouched by age or magic, lays undone over his shoulder, a long, wild russet tangle.
G’raha Tia stares uncomprehending at the Crystal Exarch.
“I am the Crystal Exarch,” he says finally. “I… was you.”
And G’raha’s eyebrows furrow. As if he is staring into the Crystal Exarch’s soul and measuring all that he sees there. Piling the misdeeds and acts of compassion onto the scales.
And his eyes narrow.
“What have you done?”
He tells him everything. Tells him of the future he would wake into, the Eighth Umbral Era and all its horrors. Of Garlond Ironworks and the generations-long work they had done.
Of waking into the First. Of the Tower.
And he tells him about her.
The Exarch talks more than he ever has. His voice is thin and reedy towards the end, trying to recall every detail. He omits nothing. He hides nothing. He vowed to her there would be no more secrets, and he means to keep his promises.
If he has never been truly honest with anyone, at least he can be honest with himself.
“You wish to see if our souls will blend,” G’raha finally says at length, his tail thumping softly as he contemplates. “So I see.”
“You are free to decline,” The Exarch says. “Your life is your own.”
G’raha frowns. “Despite your best intentions, you have left me with no choice. If I deny you, I will slumber in the Crystal Tower for time immemorial. And you will fade into nothingness. You will die. And she will be alone again.”
“She?”
G’raha laughs. “Who else,” he grins, canines flashing. The Exarch had lived for so long with a glamour hiding his features he’d forgotten what they looked like. His own body rendered alien to him.
“But this is not your death,” The Exarch counters, “you will live on—we will live on.”
“Coalesce.”
“But it is your choice. It…” The Exarch laughs gently. “It reminds me all too much of when I was roused from my slumber, and Garland Ironworks told me of their hopes, their plans. How could I deny them that? Who was I to look upon the centuries of work done by their people and deem it valueless?”
“A choice you are doomed to make,” G’raha echoes. “It seems my entire life has been those choices. How could I run from the Ancient’s wish?”
“I suppose if it is anyone’s choice at all, it is the Warrior of Light’s,” The Exarch smiles. “For she has had more claim to my life than anyone.”
G’raha looks down at his hands. “If,” he whispers, “I say yes… you will take care of her? Through every journey? Every hardship?”
The Exarch nods solemnly. “Of course. What else would I do? What else could I do?”
“She is the star charting our course,” G’raha says softly. “And if I have no faith in my own ability, or in Allag, or anyone else… I believe in her.”
He closes his eyes.
And then he opens them again.
The feeling—the feeling of hope—bleeds into faith, and then transcends belief into knowing.
And then… reality.
Raha feels the hard, cold crystal of the throne beneath him. He struggles to uncoil from his sleeping position, stiff from disuse.
And he hears…
Crying.
Soft and whimpering. Warm hands move over his face, cradling his cheeks, his ears.
“Raha,” the Warrior of Light sobs. She is as beautiful as she has ever been and crying harder than he’s ever seen, cheeks ruddy and sniffling hard. “Y-Y-You’re… do you… do you… remember…?”
“I told myself I wouldn’t give you reason to cry again,” Raha says softly, reaching up to brush her tears away. Her cheek is warm and damp beneath his fingers. “I have already broken that promise.”
She breaks into laughter, burying her face in his chest. He can feel her tears soak through his tunic, warm against his skin. “I missed you,” she mumbles, “gods, I missed you so much—“
If I dream, Raha thinks as she leads him home, never wake me.
Everything is new. From the most minute of details, to the overwhelming evidence that time had indeed passed as he slumbered, Raha feels as if he is looking into this world with new eyes.
Everything is different. A world which had moved on without him, and yet here he stands, a living testament to the existence of the First, of the averted Calamity.
Time moves in a strange, dizzying blur. It is pure sensational overwhelm. Raha finds himself pondering even the taste of Tataru’s excellently brewed tea, the sweetness lingering on his tongue. He talks himself hoarse and then continues on, the Scions and the Warrior filling him in on all he had missed.
And Lyna’s tearful farewell.
His head feels compressed, too full of new information and sensory to take in any valuable information. Perhaps the Warrior notices; when the conversation falls away from them for a moment, she gently nudges his hand, still entwined with his beneath the table.
“Would you like to rest?” She asks gently.
“Ah—yes. That would be… quite needed.” He squeezes her hand. “I shall see you on the morrow?”
She raises a brow. “You… wish to sleep alone?”
The Exarch would have demurred. He would have hesitated and flushed, even with all they had been through. Surely he did not deserve her consideration, her companionship…
G’raha Tia leans forward and whispers into her ear. “I do not.”
He feels her shudder. He feels her hair brush his face and the tremble in her hand.
“Come with me.”
She beckons him on, and there is nowhere else, no one else he would rather follow down.
A strange feeling sinks down into your bones as you readjust to your new-old life on the Source. Much as you expected, Raha blends in amicably with the Scions, taking on his new duties with a youthful smile and time-tested determination. His quarters go untouched save for his hours of studying; he seemed to linger in yours more oft than not, and you were… more than reticent to let him sleep by himself.
Even if a Calamity has been averted, there is still so much to do. Eorzea was still plagued with myriad problems, and the Scions’ disappearance hadn’t gone unnoticed by the Alliance. Each of the city-state leaders wanted to hear your tale… and meet your mysterious benefactor.
All through the long bells on the road, dinners and fetes and luncheons and saving those who needed saved…
Something unfinished lingered within you.
It was easily stifled during the daylight hours. You were far too focused on your duties, and when those didn’t overtake your mind, you were focused instead on Raha. You owed him an adventure, and you wanted to make sure he got every last ilm he’d ever thought to ask for and more.
No, the slinking feeling waited until the quiet hours of dark. When Raha shed his clothes and tucked into bed with you, when he kissed you long and slow, his hands moving over your body in slow, lazy movements, when he coiled tight against you after making love, his breathing growing shallow and slow as you stared out the cracked window, the Syrcus Tower’s spiral beaming against the darkness.
It grew to such a screaming in your mind you felt you could not stifle it.
But stifle it you tried. It was selfish, utterly and completely ridiculous. Never had things been so peaceful and joyous between the two of you. These negging thoughts would simply have to stay quiet, because you would risk nothing fracturing the hard-earned happiness you had fought to have for so long.
But there was the trick with such things. Much as you had tried to resist your desires for the Crystal Exarch and failed entirely, so too did this follow such a course. And the more you tried to contain it, the more it wanted to rip out of you and leave nothing but ferocious hunger in its wake.
Ever since that night—when you both forgot yourselves, lost to anger and grief and frustration, when you cried out his name—G’raha Tia never attempted to bind or blindfold you. He touched you as if you were fragile, easily broken, precious. Even now, with those wounds long closed, he was still unbearably gentle in your trysts. He apologized tenfold when he left a ruddy lovebite on your neck. Nearly fell to his knees in absolution when he left a bruise on your hip.
It was sweet, in a way, that someone cared so much to keep you safe.
But…
It also infuriated you.
Your prior loveplay had came about with the intention of keeping his identity safe. And with it came secrets and distrust and anger.
But there had been something… more to it.
A certain high, not unlike the bloodlust you felt during battle. Satisfaction so thorough it left your bones weak and ignited a fire in your blood.
You missed it.
You wanted it.
But G’raha Tia seemed entirely… disinterested in such things. Perhaps it had merely been a matter of efficiency for him, and he truly didn’t hold such appetites. Or the prospect was tainted by that cruel night between the two of you, and he didn’t want to open up old wounds.
And so, you kept your silence.
And you thought you just might be able to do it, until you found his books.
Raha was away for two days, training with Alisaie and the accomplished duelist X’rhun Tia in the Mor Dhona wilderness. Raha had mastered both white and black magicks, but he was fastidious in his studies and took Alisaie’s offer for additional training readily.
Unfortunately for the Warrior of Light, Eorzea seemed blessedly at peace these days, and thus you found yourself pacing the Rising Stones, restless and uneasy.
Your footsteps brought you to his quarters, or what would be more aptly called his study. It resembled his quarters in the First, with piles of books and tomestones and Allagan relics recovered from Azys Lla. Idly you turned over the books on the desk, curious as to where his studies had directed him. 4th Era Allagan poetry, a Sharlayan tome dedicated to Amon’s exploits, another on Dalamud.
A scarlet book caught your eye at the bottom of the stack. You extracted it from the other tomes, turning it over to see the cover.
Pain and Pleasure: An Analysis on Fourth Astral Era Allagan Fetishes.
Your eyebrows rose. Was this the sort of literature he’d mentioned, when you’d first began your affair in the Crystarium? You remembered his whiskey-laden words, spoken in the darkness of your quarters.
“The Allagans, advanced though they were, explored many… sorts of sexual practices. While Sharlayan scholars tried to bury what they could, there was an exceptional propensity towards the twin sides of pain and pleasure, and how best to extract such things in loveplay.”
You opened the tome, and your eyebrows rose higher still. You found yourself scrabbling for the desk chair as you turned the page.
It was a scholarly analysis, with excerpts lifted from Allagan poetry and pornography at the time.
And there were… illustrations.
There was an entire chapter dedicated explicitly to rope bondage, and its various implementations. Bodies bound in hundreds of different ways; tressed up with their hands bound to their feet, or folded over and forced to kneel. Knot-work for both aesthetic and pleasure, often applied at particular junctures so as to cause unbearable pleasure should the submissive struggle against their bonds.
Your mouth felt dry, hands shaking as you turned each worn page. Women suspended in the air with harnesses, masked and completely yielding. The next chapter, aptly titled Anguish, was entirely dedicated to sexual torture. Whips, chains, pincers applied to the nipples and genitals…
Your hand trembled as you slowly, helplessly, slid a hand beneath the waistband of your trousers.
You were impossibly wet in your smalls, soaking through the fabric as you worked, head bowed over the table as you read. Had G’raha done the same, in his youth? You imagined him at a study-desk in Sharlayan, scarlet hair undone as he frantically stroked himself…
Gods, had he done this recently?
You had never came so quickly. The images were a delicious poison to your blood, nails digging into the desk as you came undone against your hand, choking back a moan as you rocked your hips into your hand. You had hoped your efforts would cool your blood, grant you some amount of reprieve or clarity…
Even as the tides ebbed and you buttoned your trousers, you wanted more.
But when G’raha Tia returned the following evening, his skin sunkissed and ruddy, talking faster than a Kobold about X’hrun’s incredible tales, you couldn’t find it in yourself to tell him.
What if you ruined this? It was just sex, after all. Fascinating though it was, you should have been entirely satisfied with things as they were.
Nothing mattered more than his happiness. Least of all your strange desires.
But that book unlocked something in you, something you could not deny, and that strange, whispering urge sank down into your very being…
And into your dreams.
You were utterly stuck. You try to move your arms, your legs, but they are locked into place by manacles and chains cold as hoarfrost against your inflamed skin.
“Is this what you want?” You feel a warm hand slide down between your shoulderblades, fingers tracing the curvature of your spine like books on the page. Raha kneels down beside you, and his eyes burn like fire. “Is this what it will take?”
“Yes,” you gasp. You lean your cheek against the table, your hair falling into your face. “This… yes, this is… what I want…”
“Who do you want, my dear?” Raha whispers. “Me, as I am… or the Crystal Exarch?”
You fear the answer. You swallow hard, struggling on words.
Raha laughs, gentle and cruel. “So I see.”
And he stands, his hand on your back smoothing down, resting at your pelvis.
And then both of his hands smooth over your haunches, and you sigh with satisfaction, tilting your hips up and back towards him, standing on tip-toe.
Crack.
The smack startles a yelp out of you, shrill and wild. Your skin burns as he rubs the sting away, his breath growing more ragged.
“You want me to hurt you? To punish the Warrior of Light?” Raha asks airily. He never speaks to you like this—not with so much disregard and condescension.
It might have even unnerved you, if it didn’t kindle a fire in you.
“Yes,” you plead, and he answers you with another smack, and you jerk against the bindings, body trembling.
“If that is truly what you desire of me,” Raha whispers, “then I am happy to oblige.”
Fire. You feel like you’re burning alive when you wake, legs kicking at the tangle of sheets, your skin sticking to the bedclothes. You run your hands through your hair, unkempt and damp as you try to parse reality and dream. It’d felt so real…
Your thighs are still sticky with your release—and gods, you needed more, more than you’ve ever needed anything.
“Raha,” you whisper into the darkness, reaching out blindly for him. He had turned over onto his side, his ear flicking up as your hand fists the blanket around him.
He makes a soft noise, and you can’t help yourself.
You pull the sheets off him, his body unexpectedly cool beneath your feverish touch. Am I… in heat? You can’t help but wonder as you lean down to kiss him, open-mouthed and fervent. He groans when you take the swell bottom of his lip between your teeth and drag, his arms coming hard around you.
“You’re so warm…” he murmurs against you. “So…”
“I want you,” you whisper, moving down to his throat, licking him from the crook of his collarbone to catch his mouth with yours again. “I want you now.” Your hands slide down his body, traversing the now-familiar valleys of muscle til you come to his hips, palming his growing hardness as you drag his smalls down. “Fuck me, please…”
His hands come hard at your hips and your stomach flips. But he’s gentle, merely massaging the flesh as he pulls you into his lap.
No. Not like this. You wanted him to take you like how he wanted, you wanted his anger, the slow-burning rage you had grown to adore as the Crystal Exarch. You slip out of his arms, pulling him over you in the sheets, arms locking around his neck and losing yourself in his kiss.
His hand slides down you, palming your breasts and down your belly before slipping down beneath your damp smalls. He exhales sharply. “You’re so… gods—“
“Just take me, Raha,” you grate, “I want you to—to—“
Cold and crystal clear, rationale washes over you. What were you doing? What were you asking of him?
“You want me to do what?” Raha urges, caressing your cheek. His thumb comes beneath your chin, forcing you to meet his gaze. His pupils are black pits, scarlet rendered a thin circle of flame around them. “Tell me what you want.”
“I…”
It’s there. It’s on the tip of your tongue, everything you’ve tried to hide from him, all those cursed illustrations from his book, your dream, everything you’ve avoided saying since that night…
You blink furiously against the tears, no longer able to hold his gaze.
Raha pulls away then, and you think it will break you.
“A moment,” he says gently, turning on the bedside lamp before fetching the water pitcher and pouring two glasses. He passes you one before taking the other, settling beside you in the bed.
You take a drink of the water, wiping the tears from your cheeks. You feel utterly humiliated.
Raha’s hand settles on your back, rubbing slow, soothing circles.
“Speak whenever you are ready.”
“I… I’m afraid if… I open this, whatever this is, it— it will ruin all which we have worked so hard for. Your happiness matters so much to me—“
“And your happiness is all I care for in this world,” Raha says gently. Even through the tears, he is a resplendent vision in the warmth of the lamplight, his skin rosy and gold, eyes watching you with compassion so sincere it aches. “There is nothing you could tell me that I would not gladly bear, my dear. Please, speak freely.”
Looking at him is too much. You instead focus on the cup in your hands, willing your voice to stay steady as you speak. “There is something I have… missed.”
“Missed?” Raha echoes, his hand stilling on your back.
You nod, swallowing the stone of guilt in your throat and forcing yourself to continue. “You… remember our arrangement, when we first began.”
“You speak of the rope and blindfold.”
You nod, the water in your trembling. “While I know it was merely out of necessity, there was something in the midst of all that which transpired which… I find myself hard-pressed to deny.”
“I see,” Raha says gently.
“It didn’t… occur to me, until we returned to the Source. Once all was quiet, it seemed my mind could not help but turn to that. And just when I thought I had made peace with it…” You sigh, ashamed. “I found a book. In your quarters.”
Raha laughs darkly. “Did you, now.”
“It wasn’t my intention to spy,” you plead, “I was simply curious as to where your studies had directed you, and it… well, it caught my attention.”
Raha shakes his head. “You are of no fault. It was not something I had intended to hide from you.”
“I need to know what you’re thinking,” you say softly.
Raha nods, running a hand through his unbound hair. “You… are not alone in this. For I have entertained such things far more than I’d like to admit.”
Your breath catches. “Forgive me, but you seemed… so hesitant. In your affections.”
Raha smiles bitterly. “I assumed you felt the same as I towards that night—that you didn’t want to revisit or rekindle such things.”
“You assume I did not thoroughly enjoy myself,” you say wickedly. “The secrets I could do without.”
“And there shall be none,” Raha assures you, stroking your shoulder with his thumb affectionately. “The matter has… lingered in my mind since things have quieted. But much as you, I have not wished to reopen old wounds, nor shift the fixture of our relationship. But I am practiced at keeping quiet about such matters—and I am grateful that you are not.” He leans over to press a kiss on your forehead. “I would have suffered another Calamity before voicing such things.”
“Does that mean…” you dart up to look upon him, afraid of what you would see. “… you’re interested?”
You find merriment in his eyes. “How could I not? But… we must discuss this before we leap into such things. I cannot help but remember all too well how I felt that night. And the ways I hurt you.”
You lean up to kiss him. “I have an idea,” you smile, “if you would entertain such a thing.”
Raha’s grin is crooked and devilish. “Always.”
It was far more premeditated than all their other times together, and thus it gave him the opportunity to look forward to the night with some amount of anxiety.
The Coerthan cabin was chilly, save for the fire they had built to a comfortable blaze. The heat rushes over his bare skin as she works the knots binding his hands together. He had always shied away from making his knots actually inescapable, but she was under no such delusions.
It would require a knife or charm to free him; he would not be able to escape by himself.
And then…
The Warrior wrapped the blindfold around his eyes, the soft velvet enveloping his vision in darkness as she brushed aside his unbound hair to secure it.
He could hear his heartbeat leap wild in his ears, his skin fairly prickling with how uncomfortable he felt.
“How do you feel, Raha?” She asks gently.
He licks his lips. Adjusts his shoulders, shifting on the spot. He’s trying to find the right words, to know what she needs to hear—
“Raha.” It’s more forceful this time, a touch impatient. “How do you feel?”
“N-Nervous,” he stammers out, swallowing. “Not… not intolerably so.”
“How do your arms feel?”
“Comfortable.” Checking in, he realizes. She needed to hear how he was feeling, and the truth. “I think the blindfold bothers me most.”
“Oh?” Her voice lilts with feigned curiosity. “How does it feel, to be the one blinded? Unaware of the full extent of my plans, helpless to my desire?”
A shudder sweeps down him, from the nape of his neck all the way to the tip of his tail. “I cannot think of hands I’d rather be in,” he murmurs.
She clicks her tongue with distaste. “I’m trying to be frightening and you’re just serving me honey,” she laughs, resting a hand on his cheek—
And then, the command unspoken, as if borne into his very blood, she brings him down to his knees.
The hardwood floor is icy beneath his bare legs, and his breathing grows ragged as he waits for her. He feels her draw near—he can nigh feel her body heat, and Raha unthinkingly draws forward, his cheek brushing against the silken cloth of her dress.
Her hand turns upward to caress his ear, and his mind is made up for him. He acts on pure instinct.
He’s forced to go by feel, using his teeth to drag the thin skirt aside, feeling her chuckle as he mouths the seam of her stockings, finding that blissfully bare skin—and then her smalls, nosing them aside and craning his neck to lap at her, so warm and wet for him already—she makes no move closer, and he’s forced to angle his back to get at her better, her hand stilling on his head as he finds her pearl, knowing it’s what she wants—
“You’d do that no matter what straits you’re in,” she huffs, taking a step back.
Raha whines with frustration—it was so much easier when she was bound—tilting forward to drag one long swipe up her cunt—
“Enough.” Her voice is amused, yet firm. Another step and he risks toppling over; he can still taste her on his tongue as he cants his head upward to her.
“When you had me bound all those times, what was your biggest concern?” She asks him—he hears her move down, kneeling in front of him now. “Your pleasure or mine, Raha?”
“Yours,” he blurts. “Always yours.”
“And what do you want right now?”
“W-Whatever you desire, of course—“
“What I desire is your pleasure, Raha,” the Warrior whispers, moving to capture his lips with hers—how strange to kiss her like this, where she takes without thinking, pinching his jaw as she conquers his mouth in slow, decisive swipes of her tongue, nipping his lip hard enough to sting when she catches him moving away. “You deserve everything that is best in this world, but you are determined never to suffer any of it.”
“You flatter me,” he whispers, hoarse. He did not deserve any of it; he knew that as he knew his own bones. Even this second gasp at life was asking far too much.
Her warm hands sweep over his chest, dragging her nails as she kisses down his jaw, his neck—he’s helpless to her attentions, only able to shudder and groan as she works downward. There had been a certain hypersensitivity to his body, since he’d returned to the Source, and she certainly knew it, feeling her lips curve into a smirk around him as she leaves little lovebites over his pectorals, licking down his sternum and mouthing at his nipples.
“Ah—! T-that—“
“Good or bad?” She asks gently, between slow, indolent kisses to his skin.
“G-Good— too much, possibly—“ Raha hisses between his teeth as her hands skim down his torso, settling at his narrow hips, thumbs brushing just a touch lower, just where he needed her.
“Come,” she says suddenly, helping him to his feet as she stands. He’s forced to follow her, blind, finding himself reaching out even for her aether for some sense of where to stand. Before he can travel too far, she tucks two fingers in the bindings at his wrists, tugging him forward and with strength that shouldn’t have surprised him but still did. She pins him to the bedsheets in a trice, perching on his stomach.
“I need you to promise me something—or at the very least, try,” she whispers, leaning close so her hair brushes his cheek.
“Anything,” he promises.
“Don’t think about my pleasure. Worry only for yours.”
“You ask me what every man thinks of, as if I am unsusceptible?” he grins—
But he knows, he knows she sees at the heart of the matter.
“You’ve given so much of yourself in service to me, to others—but here, I would have you be conscious only of your own whims.” She presses a gentle kiss to his brow. “Can you do that?”
He swallows hard, adjusting his arms as they lay above his head. “I… I will try.”
Her strong, steady hands hold his hips fast as he kisses down his body, wasting no time as she settles at the end of the bed, taking him in her grip and gifting him with a long, slow stroke. His entire body arches upwards into her, unable to stifle the moan of sheer need which leaves him—gods above, he wanted her so badly, nigh trembling with excitement with what she might do.
And then, without preamble, she takes him into her mouth. Raha’s hips come off the bed, a wild sob leaving him as she hums around him in contentment, her tongue sliding up the underside of his shaft, nails digging into his thighs.
She wastes no time, far too well acquainted with his body. Her pace quickens, using her hand to make up for all that she cannot take, her hair fanning over his bare thigh as she fervently sucks, and he strains against his bonds, eyes fluttering shut as he calls out her name, knowing exactly how close he was to finishing—
And then she ceases her ministrations entirely, a dark laugh sweeping over his skin as she pillows her head on his thigh.
“Breathe, Raha,” she tells him. “Relax.”
As he struggles to steady his breathing, his mind spins with why this feels so familiar yet so alien—
“Oh— oh by the Twelve,” Raha swears, “I—I know what you—you godsdamned minx, a blight upon the very stars—“
“I couldn’t help but take a leaf from your book,” the Warrior’s giggle is light and teasing. “Unless you can’t handle it?”
“If ever I’ve regretted my actions, it is now,” he gasps, finding himself testing the bonds. She would drive him stark raving mad at this rate. “Little did I know exactly what horror I was creating for myself by dawdling with you!”
“Only you would call being bound and pleasured senseless a horror,” she sniffs. “I’m certain any number of people would kill Titan himself to be in your position.”
“Bound and tortured by the Warrior of Light herself?” he laughs. “My dear, I’ve come at the very thought countless times. But…” he shifts his body, feeling his arousal rest slack against his thigh, “Well… I had different designs upon the idea,” he admits.
“And what were your designs?”
“Oh, being your ever-devoted sex slave, unto death itself,” he can’t help but smirk at the memory. “My only concern in life ensuring my beloved reached her peak after peak, just as she deserves—“
“Hopeless,” she mutters, “hopeless. Even in your fantasies, you’re concerned with my pleasure. I’m not even there!”
She shows her indignation through action, leaving searing lovebites on the sensitive skin of his hips, driving a ragged gasp from him when she descends upon again. He’s still soft—but not for long—and it somehow feels all the more, as she can take all of him into her mouth, pinning his hips with one strong arm on his abdomen, forcing him to take it, to endure all she gave him.
It is so much faster to bring him to the brink this time, his testes tightening at the sheer need to release as she sucks and laps at him—Raha feels her struggle as he hits the back of her throat but he cannot ease off even if he wanted to, and with an obscene, wet sound she hilts him—
The instant he thinks he’s going to come, she backs off entirely, gasping for air as she comes off him. For one perilous moment he thinks he’s going to finish anyway, his body contorting in the sheets as his mind spirals.
And then it passes, shuddering as she drags her cool nails down his feverish skin.
“Y-You needn’t exert yourself so much—“
“G’raha Tia,” she says like an oath, so condemning he nigh quails in fear, “I know my own limits. I don’t know if you know your own.”
“I know you have me at the godsdamned brink,” he snaps, and she slides up his body to reward him with a long, slow kiss.
“Ah, there’s that fire,” she purrs, raking her hands through his hair.
She was playing him like a fiddle with all the skill of a maestro.
The next time she hardly touches him and he’s already seizing, swearing her name, his body contorting around her— he was so close, so blissfully close—
And then, he feels her disengage—
“Fuck—please, gods, no, please, I—“ He whimpers, arching his body upwards, resting his bound hands on her head, clutching her hair desperately. “Don’t stop, I beg you, please—“
“Oh, how lovely you sound pleading for me,” she purrs, favoring him with a stroke. “But I know you can do better.”
“I-I-I’ll do anything, I’ll let you do anything to me, please, just let me— Warrior, if you have any love for me, I need this, I’m going to—“
He feels her move—straddling him, her skirt brushing his skin, her blessedly bare cunt settling over him, so wet and tempting. With a roll of her hips, bracing herself against him, he slips the first ilm in—
He’s never felt so impatient in his life, thrusting up into her without waiting for her, anything to bury himself in that warm slick, hissing with the sheer pleasure of it all. “Oh gods, yes, just like that, you are the most splendid thing—“ he utters, the sound ravenous and harsh—he wanted, more than anything, to be able to see. To see the self-satisfied smirk he was so certain was on her lips as she rode him, to watch the way she effortlessly took him—
Stars tumble beyond his eyes, a broken sob on his lips as he spasms upward into her, pleading his love, his devotion as he fills her, wrung dry of all fight as she whispers gently to him, “You’re doing so good, Raha, look at you…” And she finally leans forward, kissing him tenderly, brushing the blindfold off his eyes as she gazes down at him.
“How do you feel?” She finally asks him later, after he’s unbound and he’s settled in her lap, stroking his ears and hair as a long-stifled purr rumbles low in his throat.
“Selfish,” he mumbles, leaning over to kiss her thigh.
Her smile is devilish. “Good.”
It had been a delight all its own, to have Raha in the same ways he’d had you. There was something delicious in knowing he was completely and utterly yours, his strong shoulders restrained by the ropes, only able to whimper and plead as you worked him.
It was a scenario you would make certain was revisited, now that you knew just how delectable he could be when he was utterly helpless.
And there had been a shred of vengeance in it. In giving him everything he had given you, in watching him squirm and plead and curse as you dragged him ever closer to the edge…
… But while it ignited new desires, the flames the Crystal Exarch had fanned moons ago were burning bright in your breast still.
You could tell he was hesitant when you approached him with the idea one evening, tracing unknown sigils across his broad chest, his heartbeat steady and vibrant beneath the skin.
But you also saw how his eyes widened, his tail lashing beneath the sheets.
He wanted it just as much as you.
You made arrangements with Tataru to procure a cabin in the Black Shroud for a night, claiming you were needed by the Sylphs.
“G’raha’s will accompany you, I imagine,” Tataru grins at you, a twinkle in her eyes.
You smile. “Indeed. It seems I cannot escape him.”
“Ha! As if you’ve even tried!”
Much as when you took the reins, Raha was dedicated to preparation. He vowed to keep some surprises for you, but he was intent on knowing exactly that which you desired, and more importantly, what you didn’t.
One evening, he came into your quarters rather innocently, holding that scarlet-and-gold bound book.
“I thought we could use some reading,” he smiled, his canines glinting in the dim firelight, “if you wouldn’t mind.”
“I’d love nothing more than to hear all about Allag’s dirty secrets from the living scholar himself.”
“Actually,” Raha demurred, and he settled into the bed with you, scooping you into his arms and dandling you on his lap, “I was wondering if you would read for me.”
And read you did. It was torture like nothing else, to struggle to read the text as Raha’s hands lazily drifted over your body, always hovering just over where you so sorely wanted him but never giving in, stopping entirely when your voice faltered over the more obscene passages. The man was nothing if not thorough, so it seemed.
And gods help you, you could not help but look forward to how exactly he would use the information in that damned book.
And from the look in his eyes—dark as spiced wine, full of the same intelligence which had carried you safely through trial after trial—he was looking forward to that night too.
There is something comforting in feeling the ropes over your naked body again; they bring a gentle reassurance, almost like being held. It takes much longer for Raha to complete the bondage, often asking you to turn or twist this way or that, his warm fingers whispering over your bare, shuddering skin. They twine in serpentine knots all the way from your thighs to your wrists, the rope thrown over a beam above you. Raha particularly lingers on this part, executing a series of particular tricky-looking slipknots as you test your bonds, enjoying the feeling of the ropes over your body.
You want to ask if he likes seeing you like this, but you can see the subdued fire in his eyes, the way his breath drifts, ragged and hitching over your neck and shoulders as he works.
“Are you certain?” he asks you softly when he finishes, cradling your cheeks tenderly. “You need only ask—“
“I am certain,” you smile, “as I have ever been. I’m yours.”
Raha gently draws the blindfold over your eyes, lashing it in place as he kisses you softly.
Something about the blindfold sends you under. Those dark waves which existed deep in you, and Raha plunges you down. Into the abyss, into a world in which all you cared about was him. A world ruled by pleasure and his command…
“How are you feeling?” Raha’s soft tenor breaks through the din, grounds you back into reality.
“Nervous,” you breathe. “Excited.”
When he kisses you, the universe halts in place. You lean your entire body into it, straining against the ropes keeping your wrists suspended. His tongue slips into your mouth as his hands trace the ropes down your body, following their path as they cross down to your hips, resting there as he nips your bottom lip.
“You are a vision,” Raha gasps between kisses, “that you would allow me to do this, even after everything…”
“I want you,” you plead, “all of you, now—“
You feel his crooked smile curve against your lips. “Patience,” he hums. “Can you be patient for me?”
You nod, frantic.
Raha moves like a torturer—slow, deliberate, and agonizing. And you are helpless against his onslaught, his bound captive in totality. His lips drift down your jaw, nipping the delicate skin, drifting down to your neck. He kisses your pulse point once, twice, soft and tender—
—And then he bites, and you can’t fight the moan that slips from your throat, the way your hips tip forward.
“As much as I enjoyed being in your position,” Raha hums, before licking a long, scorching stripe from your neck all the way down to your collarbone, “I much prefer having you like this.” He kisses trail down to one breast, gooseflesh rising as he moves. “You are constantly a force in motion, and there is something… satisfying to see you still.” He pinches your other nipple, surprising a yelp out of you. “To see you endure all that you are given.”
And he draws your hardened nipple into his warm mouth, swirling his tongue over the raised flesh. You keen, helpless, struggling to lean into his blessed mouth. His teeth scrape over you and you shiver, arching up onto tip-toe to meet him.
“I wonder,” Raha continues, his hands sliding down your waist, slow yet strong, a force you couldn’t wait to see unleashed, “precisely how much you can take, before you break.” His hands slide down to your haunches, cupping them, squeezing hard. “And what that breaking would be to witness.”
“You mean to break me?” you manage, your voice thin and high. Gods, he had barely touched you and you were already so undone by him.
Raha kisses your belly, gentle and teasing. “I mean to try.”
You had no doubt he would succeed.
You feel him sink to his knees in front of you, and it sends you spinning to think about how he held all of the power of you, and yet he was on his knees before you, running his hands up your knees and thighs…
… meeting at the junction between your legs.
“Well,” Raha chuckles, “aren’t you eager.” His thumbs trace over your slit, skimming over your flesh. “Are you certain you want this?”
“I do,” you answer, your hips canting forward, “I do, please—“
He parts your lips, and you feel unbearably seen, witnessed in your entirety, unable to even see him. How must he look, on his knees, those sanguine eyes considering the deepest parts of you?
And then he leaves a featherlight kiss on your center and you cannot think at all.
“Is this,” you stammer as his hands retreat, smoothing over your thighs, “how you intend to break me?”
“That depends,” Raha teases, “is it working?”
You swear a series of unsavory oaths, only silenced by his tongue, pressing slowly yet incessantly against your pearl, and your breath hitches in your throat as you buck forward, held back by the pull of the rope. Your heels arch off the floor as he smiles against you, demurring to lick a scalding stripe up your center.
“Ah, to see my hero in such difficult restraints…” He nuzzles into your wet flesh, his mouth moving torturously as he speaks. “Would that anyone could help you now.”
You struggle not to laugh, for any movement would send you over the edge. “Toying with me as ever.”
“And what a lovely toy you are.” Raha says, low and dark before claiming you with his mouth.
His tongue flattens against you, and you can’t stop the scream which leaves your lips, shrill in your ears as you struggle to gain your footing—his hands settle hard on your haunches, lifting you to get at you better, your thighs settling on his broad shoulders as your heels dig into his back.
“I can’t,” you plead, head tipped back, a prayer to the gods as you clench harder around him. “I.. stars above, I…”
In what you first thought was an act of mercy, Raha relents, settling back to leave soft kisses on the trembling flesh of your thighs.
You soon find yourself groaning in frustration, bucking against him. “Raha… I…”
He acquiesces—so you think. His mouth finds your pearl again, but he moves slowly, never causing enough pleasure to get you where you needed.
“More… more, please…”
And then you feel his finger drift down to your center, and you know you are doomed.
He slides into you effortlessly, the small muscles clenching around the girth of his knuckles as he rocks against you.
“Oh, I might hear a little more enthusiasm on your part,” he purrs. “Some begging, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“You want me to—?” you splutter, shuddering into a gasp as his tongue moves in tight circles around you. “O-Okay, please—please let me—“
“Let you what?”
“C-Come…” you plead weakly.
“How?”
“Wh-what you’re doing—with your tongue… on… on my…”
“You’ll have to do better than that.”
“The seven hells—f-faster, please, both—faster, Ra…”
“Let me see you, love,” Raha whispers, “let me see you break.”
You convulse around him, your legs giving out entirely as you cling helplessly to him, rocking against his face, sobbing as you strain against the ropes. The orgasm passes in slow, crushing waves, driving you further under, darkness enveloping you completely.
“By the gods,” Raha murmurs against your thigh, leaving a gentle kiss.
Kissing down your leg, he gently lowers you down, your legs trembling as you feel him rise up. He kisses you tenderly and draws up your blindfold.
“How are you feeling?” He asks gently.
You blink up blearily at him, his warm, sanguine eyes as if firelight glowing back at you. It is a dizzying sight, like coming home.
“Quite well, thank you,” you laugh breathlessly.
“Do you… have a mind to continue?”
You grin at him, treasuring the way his eyes crinkle. “You told me there were surprises,” you tease, and he kisses you quick, drawing the blindfold down again.
“Woe be to me to underestimate the Warrior of Light’s strength,” he chuckles. He moves behind you, his hand finding his place at your hips. “There was a reason I chose this position,” he murmurs into your ear, and you hear the rustle of rope…
… And then there is some slack to the line holding up your wrists.
And Raha’s hand settles on your lower back and pushes you forward.
You are utterly helpless, with just the right amount of tension keeping your arms up, unable to right yourself. You feel Raha working down his trousers behind you.
It had been so long since he’d taken you like this—and there is a certain humiliation in it, only able to struggle and plead as he fucks into you. It feels so much more like this, unable to stop the helpless sounds that leave you.
“Gorgeous,” he mutters, palming your breasts, sliding down your stomach. “You are…”
And still wet from your release, he finds your center again.
He works you hard and ruthlessly, timing his fingers with his thrusts, leaving you gasping against him.
“Mine,” he snarls, low and deep as he fucks. “You are… no other…”
“Raha… I…” you sob, your arms shaking and aching against the strain, feeling the warm drip of your arousal down your thighs, “I’m… please… please…!”
If you thought he had broken you last time, it is nothing compared to this. Raha clenches your hips tight to steady you as you sway, bucking back helplessly against him, his grip on you growing bruising as you clench and unclench around his length.
“You let me do so much to you,” he whispers gently, rubbing your back soothingly, “I wonder if you will do one more thing.”
“Anything,” you gasp, your mind reeling, “I’ll do… anything…”
You yelp as his length draws out of you, nails digging into the rope against the complete overwhelm. You feel him move around you, his hands trailing over your body as he moves to stand before you.
You feel his cock nudge your parted lips, and your tongue reaches out to drag a long strip up.
Raha’s hand digs into your hair and moves.
You can taste yourself on him as you suck. It’s difficult to do much else, for his pace is so rapid, picking up the same breakneck pace he left off. “Fuck,” he groans, cupping your cheek. “You… gods, I love you so much…”
Your mouth works against him, even now feeling the shudders of desire, dark and penumbral in your blood, your thighs clenching to control yourself.
“I wonder if, even now, you think of me or the Exarch,” he taunts, fingers digging into your hair, clenching it tight in his fist.
Gods you wished you could see him—he must look like a fiery glory above you, eyes dark with need—for you. You and you alone.
As if they were any doubt even now, he growls your name, low and dark as his hips stutter against you, and you feel his hot release on your tongue, working to swallow everything he gave. “Mine,” he whispers gently, his thumb stroking your ruddy cheek.
He doesn’t linger long, leaving you dizzy and reeling as he moves to set you back upright, lowering the slack completely to draw your arms back down, Raha moving quickly to unbind your wrists. “I-I fear I was a little too long—“
“Raha,” you laugh breathlessly once your hands are freed, hooking them around his shoulders, “I would have tolerated all that and more.”
Raha kisses you, pulling off the blindfold and moving down to carry you. “I’m afraid even my stamina is at an end,” he chuckles, settling you onto the bed.
“’Tis a blessing, for mine is too,” you grin up at him.
While you yearn for sleep, there is still much to do. Raha gently shifts you to lie on your stomach, patiently undoing the intricate knotwork over your body. “I almost missed these,” he murmurs softly, tracing his fingers over the raised edges of the rope burn, “your skin is… such a marvel, like this…”
“They’re a pain to hide,” you laugh gently, “but I miss when they leave.”
He kisses your back tenderly, featherlight brushes over your sensitized skin. He patiently rubs ointment into your skin, smoothing your ruffled hair as he tucks you back into the sheets.
Fireflies dance beyond the cracked window, crickets singing sonorously in the quiet of the night. The dense forest grove blocks out the stars themselves, but you know they are there, gleaming in the darkness.
“Was it… different?” Raha asks gently, his voice hoarse. “From… before?”
There is a hesitance in his words, nervous and seeking approval. You recognized it from Syrcus Trench, from the boy with a bow and mismatched eyes against a cruel, unyielding world.
Back then, you couldn’t be what he needed, what he wanted. Your duty rendered you so blind you could not see that which was right in front of you.
“Of course,” you murmur. “But I think you are looking for something else.”
He laughs softly, his breath ghosting over your hair. “You have me out,” he chuckles. “When you first told me of… your desires, it seemed there was something in particular you were looking for. And I cannot help but wonder if you found it in what transpired.”
You take his hand in yours, tangling your fingers together. There are new callouses on his fingertips, new scars crossing over the soft skin of his hand.
“Yes,” you tell him honestly. “I did. Or perhaps I discovered that which was always there.”
He lifts your hand to his lips, brushing your knuckles.
And he looks back at you with nothing but love.