A Moment to Reflect
Kiley lay back on the bed, one arm flung across Constance's ample chest, her leg wrapped snugly around Constance's, and sighed. Her heart pounded from the exertion of their lovemaking, and her breath was quick and ragged. The faint smell of sweat, lilacs, and rosewater tickled her nose, Constance's unique scent making her already pounding heart beat faster.
Kiley played idly with Constance's thick, erect almond nipples and closed her eyes. It was these moments, Kiley decided, that made everything worthwhile. All the pain and fear and doubt slipped away like mist in the morning sun when she lay beside Constance. The steady presence of the woman she loved served as a harbor in the storm, and in these few, stolen intimate moments, she was content to drift in the anchorage Constance offered and let herself simply exist.
Kiley opened her eyes and stared down at her own body in a moment of disgust. Her pale nipples and lightly freckled breasts were crisscrossed with scars. Those scars continued over her belly and between her thighs. Angry pink scars ran up her arms and down her legs. Each represented a moment of hell.
A moment strapped into the Despair battery. A moment dangling from hooks on the ceiling while the Order Administrator and his assistants beat her with chains and lashed her with whips and scourges until she lost consciousness.
It had taken her almost a year to learn how to walk again, and that long again until she could go to the bathroom properly. The Imperial healers had fixed the lingering damage to her body, but no one could heal the damage done to her mind. No one could take away the nightmares and fear, and those scars were still far fresher than the faded lines on her body.
Constance healed her self-esteem and made her feel desirable again. Constance had lifted her from being nothing more than a used-up battery to a woman again. A woman with needs and desires and wants. A woman no different than any other. As close as they had grown, there was still a distance. A gap that could not be bridged.
Constance was cautious, she was calculating, and she did nothing without planning ten steps ahead, a skill Kiley had never managed to develop. Kiley was the impulse to Constance's premeditation and embraced her role gratefully. It was this very dynamic that caused Kiley's brow to furrow in worry.
"Are ye sure abou' this?" Kiley finally whispered softly in the quiet of the room bathed in the gentle glow of Bastion's lights outside the window.
"This is a first," Constance murmured, opening one eye and regarding her with bemusement. "Aren't you the one that usually leaps in without thinking?"
"That's why this plan o' yers worries me." Kiley scowled. "It's my job t' do crazy shit. It's yer job t' stop me."
"I admit, you're not wrong about this." Constance shrugged. "It's why we're going to hedge our bets."
"Eh?" Kiley glanced up.
"We'll follow our orders. For now. We need to take a deeper measure of our new friend anyway."
"How ye mean?" Kiley frowned in confusion.
"Whether it's here or at the manor, it doesn't matter when we make our move." Constance shrugged. "It'll be better with fewer people around. The fewer people we must get past, the better off we'll be."
"What if she's nothin'?" Kiley asked. "I mean, I know what I saw, but there's a big fuckin' gap between powerful an' a legend, if ye catch my meanin'."
"What if she's what we're looking for?" Constance countered. "We can't deny the possibility of what she could be. If we let this chance slip through our fingers, we may as well put young girls into the batteries ourselves. I don't have everything worked out completely, yet, and there are a lot of factors in play, but I think this is what we've been waiting for."
"I trust ye and would follow ye t' Malikhal itsel' if ye asked. But this ain't some battle plan we can muck through by deployin' more firepower when we need it. This is criminal and we'll be on our own once we take th' plunge. We'll lose everythin' with no way back. Ye may be many things, but yer no' a rogue. I just hope yer right," Kylie murmured. "We're playin' with a lot o' lives. Ours included."
"I may not be a criminal, but I know what I'm doing. I know we're right. I know we can make this work."
"That's more like th' Connie I know an' love." Kiley grinned.
"I hate it when you call me that, you know." Constance scowled irritably.
"Ah, don' be mad, love, ye know it's a term o' endearment," Kiley teased lightly.
"You need a different term," Constance grumbled.
"Le' me make it up t' ye." Kiley grinned, trailing her hand down Constance's belly, her fingers brushing through the silken hair covering the mound at the apex of her thighs.
"Mmm," Constance moaned deep in her throat. "You could always just not call me that, you know."
Kiley leaned forward, her tongue flicking out to lap at Constance's hardening nipple teasingly while her fingers slipped over her lover's clit, sending a jolt through the dark-haired woman's body. Kiley's finger slipped lower, the tip sliding between the folds of her sex and into the warmth of Constance's entrance. Kiley leaned forward a bit further, sucking Constance's nipple into her mouth as she did.
"Nnn…n-not fair," Constance purred.
"See?" Kiley raised her head, letting the fully erect and straining nipple in her mouth slip free into the cool air. Kiley's hand maneuvered until her palm was pressed against Constance's swelling clit, two fingers inside her slit with a third pressed against the rosebud of her anus. Constance's body squirmed appreciatively under Kiley's ministrations. "I can be a good girl and make it up t' ye."
"Less talking," Constance murmured, gasping as Kiley's finger pressed into her back entrance, the muscles in her neck tensing as her body reacted.
"As ye wish…" Kiley grinned. "Connie."
"Y-You fucking brat," Constance growled, pushing the red-haired woman's head down until her mouth had re-captured Constance's nipple. "That's a better use for that mouth of yours."