A Way With Words - Chapter 5

Chapter 5

"No!" Hannah shouted, and she twisted in the grasp of her captors, scraping one's wrist with her hook as she struggled. He recoiled reflexively, releasing the arm, and Hannah whipped the arm forward in a full swing at the man who held Kale, and yelled "Hook release!" at the peak of her arm's swing. The hook came loose, twirled through the air, and struck the man that held Kale on his other side in the face.

The man released Kale's arm to paw at his face, and Kale seized his moment, planting his feet on the street and kicking backwards. The woman grunted and held onto him, but his weight and momentum were enough to send them both crashing backwards into a stack of crates behind them. The crates collapsed, sending dozens of splinters into their skin and covering them in shreds of the rotting, moldy wool they had contained as the impact kicked clouds of nasty, virulent dust into the air.

When they pulled themselves up, coughing and sputtering, Kale saw Hannah dive away from the slowed crowd, as another round of crossbow bolts bounced uselessly off of him. The woman who had assumed command drew a dagger from her side and stared murder at him, and he quickly cast another spell: hold person. He saw her resist, and her body ripple with the effort, but then she went still.

"I'm done toying with you!" Kale shouted at the other Overhand thugs, using his most commanding para-military tone. "Now surrender, or run away take advantage of the fact that there's still too many of you to chase you all down before the slow spell wears off. If you don't, the next spell I cast is a fireball!" He was counting on them not to know that he was incapable of casting that spell.

There was a general ripple of confusion, and then one of the crossbowmen, having seen two good shots bounce harmlessly off of Kale, slung the crossbow over his shoulder and decided to call it a day. He started for the main street in as hasty a retreat as he could manage, and others broke to follow him, but when they did they were met with the hulking, armored forms of a group of ten Oromikalis Guards, holding maces and wearing stern expressions.

"Stop!" yelled the guard leader. "Everyone! Drop your weapons and lie on the ground where you are! Any attempts to flee or resist will be met with lethal force!"

One slowed Overseer found a panicked sort of inexplicable courage and charged the guards at half-speed, but was quickly caught with a mace across the jaw that sent him to the ground with a spray of blood and teeth. Two others started running back towards the end of the alley, but their progress was slowed and they could not make it out of range before Kale finished casting a sleep spell and assisted both of them in getting in a much-needed nap. The rest, amidst glares and muttered threats, crouched upon the ground in surrender.

Roughly a half-hour ago, Kale and Hannah had informed the leader of this squad of guards of this planned ambush by a known criminal organization, and offered to spring the trap in order to facilitate a second big arrest. This guard was not the same man who had questioned him in the alley regarding Hannah's original theft, but he may as well have been: he was another humorless, burly enforcer who didn't mind breaking a few eggs for the sake of the omelet of society. But as Kale saw, he was not entirely humorless; there was the hint of a smirk on his brutish face as Kale approached him angrily.

"It took you long enough," Kale snapped. "At what point in that encounter did it become clear to you that I was, indeed, telling the truth about a planned ambush and attempted murder, and it was time for you to do your jobs!? Or, to put it another way: is it your intelligence or your work ethic to which I should address my scathing criticism?"

The guard leader shrugged, still smirking. "These brave men and women protect the city of Oromikalis against threats great and small," he said. "Why should I have risked their safety when one of the big, bad Adelcot Guardians is here to do the heavy lifting?"

"I nearly had my dick cut off, you stupid idiot!" Kale shouted.

The guard leader looked down at Kale's exposed cock, absurdly still erect under the influence of the cola's lift. "That reminds me," he said, "the fine for indecent exposure is ten silver ducats." His smirk widened into a full-blown grin.

Kale sputtered, ready to fly into a rage, but then took tight control over himself and pulled a golden eagle out of his money pouch. He jammed the coin into the guard's outstretched hand. "Choke on it," he told him, with tightly bitten fury, and then he jammed his scratched penis clumsily back into his trousers with a flash of pain.

"What, no extra eagle for my pleasance and good grace?" the guard leader asked. "Word of mouth tells me that yourself and Sister Luligail Adamsworth over there are usually more generous than that." Kale's surprise must have shown, because the guard leader's chuckled. "How adorable. You must think we don't talk amongst ourselves. Particularly when approached by a supposed Adelcot Guardian with a farfetched story." He tapped the side of his helmeted head, pointing to his brain.

Kale produced another golden eagle from his pouch and handed that over. "No, I'm not that naive," he said, "just naive enough to think you might be pleased at the recognition you'll get arresting nearly two dozen murderers and kidnappers, and not fuck with the people who made it possible."

"The same kind you got for your efforts, with this surprise party tonight?" the guard leader asked. He leaned in close, his breath hot and bitter on Kale's cheek. "You really are naive. Off the record, here's the truth: the Overhands got a little greedy, and the wrong people took offense. They needed taken down a peg, preferably by people who won't stick around in this city. That's why your people were called in, and Alderwoman Criss is gonna be a popular lady for coming up with the idea. But in moderation, the Overhands serve a valuable function: they help us keep the streets clear of people nobody wants. People nobody will miss." His eyes narrowed, and he gestured to Hannah. "People like her."

Kale turned away, managing to not quite shake with the extreme anger that gripped him. Turning away was the best way to keep himself from doing any of the terminally unwise things that the cola urged him to do, boiling inside his veins. Instead, he walked stiffly towards Hannah, who had just reattached her hook to her wrist. "Are you all right?" he asked.

"I think so," Hannah said. "You?"

"I can't tell until the cola lift fades, but I wouldn't be surprised if my ribs are broken," Kale said. "I've got splinters in my back and shoulders, and I think I did my best to circumcise myself with the bricks in the alley. But I have a few healing potions back at the room, and frankly, my dear, I don't give a fuck about the expense at this point." He offered her his arm and a gallant smile. "Shall we?"

Hannah took his arm and began walking with him, leaving behind the guards and the desolate streets and crumbling buildings of the Industry Point.

"I know this was an expensive night for you," she said, leaning against him, "and though your proposed gesture to me back at the hotel was very noble, I don't need to actually ask you for half your Adelcot Guardian pay for this mission, like you agreed. It doesn't seem necessary, or even right." He saw the need and yearning shining in her eyes, but her face held firm.

"You're right," Kale said, "it's not necessary, and the more I think about it, it's just not right. If you'd taken the easy money tonight, right now you'd be rich and I'd be dead. So I'm giving you all of it, and I'd ask you not to turn me down, because it's not just for you. It'll be for me, too, because that's what it'll take to make me feel good about everything that's happened tonight."

Hannah's eyes got big. "So you're talking..."

"Two hundred eagles base, and they'll likely give me a generous bonus for this follow-up work we did," Kale said. "All of it's yours. I owe you my life, but maybe you can settle for that."

"I... don't know what to say," Hannah said.

"Then don't say anything," Kale said. He slipped an arm around her slender waist. "Sometimes words aren't needed. We've used more than our allotted ration of words tonight anyway. There's probably two dozen snappy remarks I could make, about the Overhands, or the guards, or you or I or this whole big, absurd extradimensional city, or about anything, really. None of them would really fit right now." He laughed, gesturing around them, but it was a nervous laugh with no humor in it. "I'm told I have a way with words. Maybe it's just a way of dancing around and saying everything except what I really should say."

"And what's that?" Hannah asked, smiling in anticipation of a new verbal challenge. Kale inhaled deeply. She didn't realize that it wasn't a game any more.

"I'm in love with you, Hannah," Kale said, never breaking his stride. The world around him was out-of-focus, something that could be felt more clearly than seen or heard.

Hannah shoved him aside with a harsh laugh. "Love, really?" she said. "Kale, I... I mean, there's something here; I can feel it too. But love?" She shook her head and smiled. "I've known you for a handful of hours now. In months, if not years, when your head's not scrambled on a cola lift and an adrenaline rush from a life-or-death battle by my side, then I'd like to hear you talk about love." Her words were skeptical, a challenge to his feelings.

"Sometimes words aren't needed," Kale said again, and then he seized Hannah in his arms and kissed her. He held her close, with firm but not crushing strength, so that it would take a great deal of force to pull her away. Their kiss was long and deep, devoid of urgency, his caresses over her back and shoulders smooth and confident as their lips and tongues locked breathlessly, again and again. At length, she yielded, won over by the steady conviction in his touch that he had not quite been able to express with his words.

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Nearly a year later...

"God, Hannah, I love you," Kale said breathlessly, his body warm and familiar in her arms. "I missed you, and I thought of you every day-" Hannah's eyes were becoming sharp and watery with tears, and pulling him into a kiss was the easiest way to shut him up. His words rang of a hint of melodrama, considering he had only been gone on this last mission for nine days, but Hannah could not deny that she felt the same way.

"I love you too, Kale," Hannah said softly, "and I'm not sure that any more needs to be said."

Holding Kale's hand in her own, Hannah led him up the stairs to the master bedroom they shared at his manor, with to their lovely, enormous bed carved from Totlekenkarian rosewood with an enchanted mattress soft as clouds. She took one of his hands in hers, then placed her handless wrist in the grip of his other hand. His loving gazes and caresses never showed any disgust or pity for her missing hand, only his attraction and love for her, as she was, and so she had finally learned in recent months to stop feeling self-conscious of it. She bit her lip and looked into his eyes, waiting for him to make the first move.

"Well, let's have a look at you, shall we?" Kale said. "That's a beautiful dress, except that you look much better without it." He grinned at her, and then his eyes drifted down expectantly. "Besides... I want to see."

The light, pale blue, off-the-shoulder A-line dress that Hannah wore was, without question, nicer than anything she had owned before meeting Kale. Now it was just another item in her wardrobe, and she had no qualms about pulling it off and letting it fall to the floor. The full-length mirror beside the bed told the story nicely. She had put on healthy weight in the months since then, and her skin was clear, her features lively and radiant. Her breasts were still pointy, the nipples aiming slightly to different sides, but they, too, had filled out considerably with regular healthy diet. The swell at her belly, just above her low-slung panties, was just barely starting to become distinguishable from a normal curve, if one knew exactly what to look for, and it was here that Kale ran his hand over her with interest.

"You're coming along," he observed with a smile, and a slight tremor to his hand. "It won't be long before the world will be able to see, whether you're wearing a dress or not."

"And then your good name will be ruined," Hannah said with a smirk, "because the entire world will know that Kale Trenigull has gone and fathered a bastard on his crippled apprentice. I'm sure you'll be censured for abuse of your authority. Your career stands in severe jeopardy." She poked him in the chest with the stump of her wrist for emphasis, though her words were jests that masked some genuine causes for concern.

"They'll all have to get over it," Kale said with a grin. "I was born to wedded parents, and even so I've been called a bastard more times than I can count."

"Well," Hannah said, grinning ear to ear, "you've really done it now, haven't you? I suppose that now that the worst has happened, there's no reason not to just take me as many times as your overwhelming lusts command." She laughed and pulled the front of her panties down a bit, showing off her cunt. "It turns out I've got a few moments free right now, in fact."

Kale's hand met her down there, gently tracing swirls around her pussy and clit, and he pulled her into his arms and gave her another soft kiss. She sighed happily into his mouth, the taste of his lips and tongue familiar on hers, and felt arousal building just below the bulge of her pregnant belly. Her own hand worked quickly at his shirt; she had grown most deft at unbuttoning him so as to strip him bare quickly.

In no time, Kale's shirt was abandoned upon the floor, and his belt boots, and stockings soon followed. Even at the height of their familiarity, Hannah still took amusement in the universal truism that no man, no matter how suave or charming, could seem to remove his shoes or stockings in the heat of the moment with any sort of dignity or grace. Even Kale was adorably ridiculous as he hopped on one foot while pulling off the other one's coverings, nearly losing his balance.

"Much better," Hannah said, once she was able to slide his trousers and undershorts down to the floor, where he stepped out of them. His cock was already erect, and it felt a little different when its hot, slippery tip poked her in the belly now on their next embrace. His fingers found her pussy again, rolling over her in sweet, heavenly strokes, and Hannah found the pleasure cresting through her more intense, more urgent than she had expected, and she leaned against his warm, sexy body as her knees started to grow shaky.

Their lips met yet again, and far from stopping, Kale's hand on Hannah slid lower, so that he could slip two fingers into her even as he cupped his palm over her clitoris and rolled it against her. She moaned into their kiss, clinging to his body, and moved her hips back against him, embracing the rising tide of the pleasure. His other hand stroked and caressed her ass, then gave one of her cheeks a firm squeeze and a smack. The full-length mirror gave Hannah a fair idea that her once flat, skinny bottom had ripened into a firm, well-rounded ass in the past few months, but even had she not seen it, Kale's increasingly colorful compliments and greater interest in that area of her anatomy in recent months had left little doubt.

"Oh, Kale," Hannah breathed, and her breasts pressed hungrily into his firm, smooth chest as the orgasm finally broke over her in waves. She moaned, called his name out again and again, and his fingers and hand set off sweet sparks that stole her strength and her awareness, making her want and think of nothing but the man who held her in her arms and caressed her most intimate place with such sweet strokes. The man who had changed her life, brought her into his home, who now taught her the fundamentals of magic. The man who had fathered her unborn child.

"I love you, Kale!" Hannah cried out, as his talented hand and the intensity of the emotions she felt brought her a second peak, even before the first had faded. "God, I love you so much!" Her cries trailed off, became wordless, and echoed through the room as she hung there in his arms, her consciousness floating through a crashing storm of blissful sensation.

When her legs seemed serviceable again, Hannah grinned breathlessly at Kale. "You make me feel so good, love," she said. "I want to do something for you now. Anything. I am so deeply, incredibly in love with you right now." She wrapped her hand around the shaft of his hard cock and purred lewdly in his ear. "I'll suck you off, baby, and swallow every drop." She laughed and blushed. "Or... we can try my butt again, if you want. Maybe this time, if we use more lotion, it'll-"

Kale shook his head, smiling fondly. "Not this time," he said with a sigh. He stroked her cheek with the fingers of his other hand. "I know what I want. It just feels a little silly right now."

"I can do silly for you," Hannah said. "Shall I put on harlequin makeup? Wear the butler's neckties around my tits? Sing traditional religious hymns while you fuck between the cheeks of my bottom? Eat a fruit pie without using my hands, while you take me from behind?"

"No, not that kind of silly," Kale said. "Sappy-silly. Sentimental. All I really want is for you to ride me, so that I can look up at your beautiful face and body and touch you, and reflect on just how lucky I truly am. And then, after that, remind me that I have something else to say to you."

"Is that all?" Hannah said with a sultry smile. She guided Kale back onto the bed and climbed up with him to loom over him. True to his word, his eyes were transfixed as he watched her smile down at him, and his eyes fell to her pussy as she took hold of her cock and slowly lowered herself onto it, arching her back with a silent groan as he filled her so sweetly.

Held in his adoring gaze, Hannah lovingly rode Kale, rolling her hips atop him, his hard cock sliding in and out of her at a slow but sweet pace. She caressed his cheek, a little bit scratchy from perhaps a day's missed shaving, then ran a hand through his light brown hair, which always looked like it was starting to get shaggy and in need of a trim. He caught her wrist in his hands then, brought it to his lips, and kissed her palm, then the crease between each finger gently, lovingly. With no reservations or disdain, he did the same to her other wrist, and gently kissed the rounded end where her hand would be.

Hannah leaned forward further, rocking her hips and moaning as he filled her sweetly and his pubic bone provided delicious pressure against her clit at the bottom of each of her movements. She kissed him lightly, then traced her hand over his neck, his beautiful, lean sloping muscles above his shoulders, and his smooth chest, ironically smoother than his face because he used that alchemical ointment to take the hair off below the neck. She was moving faster, more deliberately now, her body compelling a harder rhythm with her rising pleasure, her skin just beginning to bead with sweat on this pleasantly warm day.

Kale's hands traced up her arms, leaving tickling trails in their wake, and then he stroked her shoulders, took her breasts in hand, and gently played around her nipples. Hannah gasped in delight as sparks of pleasure from her breasts joined the rising passion building in her core. His cock filled her, again and again, and with a soft, trembling sigh she leaned forward into his arms, kissing him again, her pussy exploding in passion as the angle put more pressure on her clit. She moved atop him, groaning between kisses as she rode him through her orgasm and his hips rose to meet her, her heartbeat pulses of throbbing ecstasy. Then he, too, was throbbing, filling her with a wet, slippery heat as his handsome features contorted in orgasm.

As the feelings faded, Kale and Hannah looked at one another in bliss, their breathing slightly elevated, a sheen of sweat just starting to form on their bodies. Hannah smiled, even as she rolled off of him and quickly took up a handkerchief from the stand beside their bed, trying to block too much overflowing cum from escaping her and soiling the sheets. Kale rolled to the side and kissed her, his half-hard, glistening cock painting a trail across her hip, just above her pubic hair.

"I've missed you so much, love," Hannah said softly. Soon it would be time to get up. Time for dinner, and if she was being practical, time to resume her magical studies. In these past ten months, she had proven herself a talented beginner in the arts of magic, but it would be a long time before her level of training and experience approached Kale's own. But she wanted to keep at it. It was another thing that they shared together happily.

"I've missed you just as much," Kale said, and he took a deep breath, then reached to the side of the bed where he had left his belongings. "And as much as I'd love to say that I wish this moment would never change, that's not true. I'm going to personally change it."

"Oh?" Hannah asked. She put a hand to her stomach. "You must know, love, that things are already soon to change quite a bit as it is. Perhaps-"

Kale held up his well-worn money pouch, the same one Hannah had stolen from him in Oromikalis over ten months ago, and handed it to her. "Before you stole my heart, you took this from me," Kale said. "Now I want you to have it, and all that's within it."

Hannah took the bag, which felt oddly light, and smiled. "You must know that I haven't wanted for anything since becoming your... apprentice," she said uncertainly. She set the bag in front of herself and reached inside. "Though it's a lovely sentimental token, I don't know what's in it that might be—oh." She drew out a diamond ring, and her heartbeat became as irregular and ephemeral as a pixie's wings. "Ohh."

"That," Kale said, "is no ordinary diamond ring. You have perhaps heard of an item—priceless, but not always without price, as it turns out—called the ring of wishes? It's a magical ring with the ability to grant three wishes among its wearers, throughout its lifetime. There are a few limits: only a certain amount of gold, only magical items of a certain degree of power, unlikely to successfully wish to extinguish another creature's life, and on and on, but these aren't relevant to us now. It can do exactly what I know I want."

"This must have cost... I can't even imagine!" Hannah gasped. "H-how much did you spend...?"

"Enough to purchase the wealth I have remaining, and with considerable room for error," Kale said. "But I'll never regret that choice, not if it had cost me every penny and bit I ever had and landed me in debtor's prison besides." He smiled, holding her hand, and pressed the ring to it. "You should also know that this ring has only one wish remaining to be used, and... well, I was rather selfishly hoping that you would help me, and use it to grant my fondest wish."

Hannah's head spun with possibilities. She had any number of ideas, but she wanted to hear him say the words. "What is it?" she said, her voice weak with excitement. "What wish would you have granted?"

"I want to look at you, some day soon," Kale said, "and instead of just seeing my talented apprentice who I have so scandalously ruined by fathering a child out of wedlock, see my beautiful wife-" Here he took the ring and slipped it onto her finger. "-holding our newborn child in her two sweet, perfect hands."

Tears of joy filled Hannah's eyes, and the stifled half-squeal she made as she flung herself into Kale's arms, chest heaving with sweet sobs, in no way resembled language. Thoughts poured unbidden from her brain in a torrent, but were immediately lost in the sea of emotion that flooded her, all through her body and spirit. Kale, as always, had a way with words to paint such a simple yet stirring picture of the future, but Hannah could find no words at all.

Sometimes words weren't needed.

The End

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