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“I’m not cooled down yet, but I’ve never felt more powerful!”
“I still can’t touch you, though.”
“You want to?”
“Of course.” It’s hard to tell, but you're pretty sure your red-skinned friend blushes redder.
“Well, we’ll see what happens, soldier.”
At camp that evening watching Gale mage hand another bottle of wine from their food supply, you are inspired.
“Hey Gale, how hard is it to learn mage hand?” With a flourish, he pulls the cork from the bottle and flicks it across the fire to thunk against Wyll’s horns.
“Not at all. It’s just a cantrip. I have a scroll you can study, if you want?”
“I would appreciate that.”
After a few hours study by the fire’s dying embers, you stride to the edge of the camp where Karlach has pitched her tent, scrolls and vial in hand. Always looking out for the rest of the party, her first night at camp she’d declared she’d always take the furthest space from the fire since her infernal engine kept her “more than warm.”
“Hey there, soldier. Drink with me?” She gestures to the goblets and bottle beside her and you pour. Another routine you’d established together early on, Karlach saying she’d love to play the hostess but didn’t want to stew the wine.
“Are you still feeling well with the part Dammon made you?”
“I am. I know being stable is better than cooling down, but I still wish I’d been cooled down instead.” She’s smiling, but it’s melancholic and lonely, “Ten years is a long time to go without even clasping arms with another soldier.”
“I can’t imagine. What will you do first, when you’re cooled down?”
“Gods, I don’t know. Hug the lot of you, maybe? Even Lae’zel, if she won’t slit my throat. Hold your face, as long as I’d like without worrying about a water spell wearing off.” You smile and sip your wine,
“I’d like that. I was thinking about that earlier, touching you,” You’re certain now that Karlach can visibly blush and she does as you press on through your nerves, “and Gale gave me an idea earlier, with mage hand. I think I’ve learned it but I brought the scroll in case I didn’t get it right. It won’t be the same or as good as actually holding you but… we could try it.” For a long moment, the only sound is lap of the river against the banks and the hoot of owls in the trees above.
“Why would you go to all that trouble?” Karlach’s voice is soft, almost imperceptible had you not been so focused on her. You turn in earnest, shifting to kneel before her.
“I would do much worse things for you than study a cantrip for a few hours, darling. I want you.” Her amber eyes sparkle with tears in the torchlight and she sways towards you, forgetting for a fraction of a second that she must keep herself in check.
“Can I try?”
She nods vigorously. You breathe deeply, focusing on the shape of the words of the spell in your mouth and the movement of your hand, curling your fingers in such a way that, incidentally, felt quite appropriate for the evening you had planned. You utter the spell and a semi-translucent hand manifests in the space between you. You reach out to hold the empty air between your faces and the summon does the same, bridging the gap to cup Karlach’s face for you. Her eyes widen at the faint touch,
“Oh,” she breathes, quieter still, quieter than you’d ever heard her, “it’s been so long.”
“Gale said I don’t have to motion for the hand to do what I want,” you explain, mimicking the stroking of your thumb across her high, warm cheekbones, “but I thought it still might make things feel more real.” She leans into the apparition.
“This is wonderful. I can’t believe you did this for me” You smile and your hands tuck a stray piece of hair behind her ear.
“I’d do still more. What else do you miss? Shall I hold your hand? Pull your hair, tweak your horns?” You tease. She laughs fully and loudly, brought forth from your sentimental moment.
“I do enjoy a bit of hair pulling now and again. Just…touch me.”
“Lay back, yeah? Let me give you this.” She reclines on her bedroll, propped up on a few extra blankets. She looks up at you, eyes nearly glowing with nerves and adoration. You trace over her face— her brows and horns, along the ridge of her nose, across her lips. Her mouth looks as soft and sweet as ever and you long to kiss her properly, your scrolls of water and ice too scarce and too short-lived to satisfy either of your desires. You move to her jaw and throat and swear you feel her swallow against your palm as you tease a spot below her ear. As you reach the hollow of her throat you ask,
“Do you want to keep going? Or stop?”
She shakes her head vigorously and tangles her arms up in the holes of her leathers in her haste to let you touch more skin. And so you learn her collarbones are ticklish, too. That her breasts aren’t particularly sensitive but her abdominals are, as they twitch and flex under the pale blue hand. You commit her reactions to memory, writing your liturgy for the day your true hand takes the place of its apparition. The lower your hand strays, the shakier her breath becomes. You stroke the jut of her hipbone and she whimpers so sweetly that it’s your turn to sway in for a kiss you can’t have.
“Open your legs for me, pretty thing.” You murmur, tracing her iliac furrows and dreaming of following the length of them with your tongue. As she blushes at the compliment and her bareness, you delight in seeing that the ever darker red flush grows across her chest as well as on her cheeks. She parts her large, muscular thighs, and you groan at the sight and smell of her arousal.
“Gods, Karlach. You look so lovely. May I touch you?”
“Yes, fucking hells, please.”
The first brush of your finger along her slit is too soft, tickling her labia and she giggles.
“Don’t tell me it’s your first time, soldier.”
“You try touching someone properly without any feeling in your hand!” You huff, but can’t help laughing as well,
“Talk to me, tell me what feels good or what you need more of.” She nods and you try again, stroking more insistently. You must press against her clit properly this time, because her hips jerk upwards and she gasps. That’s better, you think and make the same motion again. You’re rewarded with a sweet, pleading sound and set to your task in earnest. You probably hadn’t needed to ask Karlach to communicate, as it seemed everything felt good and Karlach was very vocal. Stroking up and down earns you a soft “ah, ah,” and circles make her sigh, but she seems to like a soft pinch and tug motion with the “V” of your fingers best. The first time you try it a groan rumbles in her chest so fiercely you feel it in the ground beneath you, two feet away. You settle into a rhythm and she begins babbling praise and pleading with you not to stop.
It’s wonderful to be able to bring Karlach pleasure in any way and quite a bit of fun to do it so creatively, and you tell her as much. You whisper the things you dream of doing together when her engine is stabilized—the scars you want to kiss and soothe, the muscles you want to sink your teeth into. You do your best to prolong her pleasure by teasing and drifting away from her clit, devoting yourself to worshiping her as long as possible. But ten years is a long time to know only your own company. As you whisper your simplest desire to her, to be held and feel the whole of her body, she comes undone. When Karlach reaches her peak, it’s not the explosion you expect. She goes silent as her core clenches tightly and she comes with a heavy, forceful exhale. Like the bellows of Dammon’s forge, the sight stokes the fires of your own desire. You dismiss the summoned hand as soon as Karlach relaxes in order to use the scroll of ice that allows you to kiss her, and you lunge to press your lips together as long as you can possibly manage it, then one precious second more. Shadowheart could heal any serious damage if need be, you think, she owes me a favor.
As you pull back, you see tears trickling down and evaporating on Karlach’s cheeks.
“By the gods, that was…better than anything I remember. Thank you.” You preen, just a bit, pleased that your attentiveness as a lover applies even with an apparition as your only option.
“Never thank me for that. Your pleasure is my pleasure.”
“I can’t believe the things you’re willing to do for me.”
“You deserve good, Karlach. You deserve love and I’ll keep giving it to you, if you’ll let me. Even if I have to go to the Hells myself to fix your engine.”
“I’d like that very much. Let’s hope we don’t have to go that far, though.” She smiles, sleep creeping into her features,
“Will you stay?”
“I don’t want to be anywhere else.”