Note: all characters in this story are 18+.
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Chapter 2: The Sweetness of Elves
When Levinja woke, she couldn't move. The world was enveloped in a strange, orange light.
Oh gods, is this death? This endless twilight?
No. Stupid. Her eyes were still shut and she was in a bright place, the light filtering through her eyelids. But opening her eyes proved impossible. Her body ached all over as if she'd been in a fight, an ache that reached up to the very top of her head.
A fight? No, she had lain with that manticore boy, Gulilubru. He had grazed her with his sting and given her a mild dose of his venom. Then why had she-?
Ah. Perhaps she knew why. He had come inside her and she had swallowed his semen. At the time, she had been filled with the heat of her desire and the riskiness of such things had not occurred to her. With these further doses her body had succumbed at last to Gulilubru's venom.
So she was not dead. Not yet, at least. With a great burst of willpower she pried open her eyes. Light poured in and she gasped.
Her gasp was met by another's. As she blinked she heard someone move, someone light of foot stepping quickly across a wooden floor. So she was inside. There was another there, short and slight, or one at least who was walked as though they were.
A shadow passed over the eyes and with the light masked she began to make out detail again. A face, a young face, delicately featured, with skin so pale as to be almost translucent, and eyes blue like living sapphires nestled behind long, dark eyelashes. The soft curve of the face's lips curled up into a smile.
"Oh, thank the gods! You've regained consciousness."
The face and the high, feminine voice revealed its owner as a young girl. No, not a human girl - her long, sharp ears identified her right away as an elf.
Levinja relaxed. Elves were monsters, it was true, but ones with a long alliance with humans. She would not likely meet with any harm at the hands of this young elf.
But still she struggled to push through this cloying fuzziness, willing her arms and legs to move, to sit her body up. The girl frowned and placed a hand on Levinja's forehead.
"Please don't move. You've been poisoned and dangerously close to death"
The elf moved away and Levinja found enough strength to turn her head. Ah, so she was inside a room. The wooden walls glowed with a gentle light, the one which had been painful to her eyes just moments ago. The room was circular, with bookshelves and tables with apparatus laid out neatly upon them. A study then, the study of a wizard perhaps.
The elf moved into her arc of vision and searched a bookshelf for a book. She was dressed in a green robe, embroidered around the edges with platinum and gold in the thin filigree only elf tailors are able to produce. Her form was clear beneath the clinging material - she was short and slender around the shoulders, but wider around the hips with that touch of voluptuousness some sylph-figured girls are blessed with. Levinja sighed. Oh, to have such a slender body again! Truly, such blessings were wasted on the young.
The elf-girl found the book and turned, her eyes alight with youthful excitement. How old was she, her late teens? Early twenties? But no, Levinja was thinking in human terms. She was likely much older, despite her youthful appearance and her childish mannerisms, mannerisms even hundred-year old elves retained.
The girl hurried back, the book floating through the air behind her like an obedient dog. It was wreathed in a golden aura. Ah, so this elf-girl was the wizard, then.
"I knew we had a book of healing magic for monster venom!" she said happily. Then she noticed Levinja moving and her smile turned to a frown. "Please, milady Levinja. I told you. Try not to move. I cast hold person on you so that the venom would not spread any further." At Levinja's confusion the smile shyly returned. "You told me your name in your delirium, and I told you mine, although you have forgotten it no doubt. I am called Elysen."
Levinja tried to reply, but Elysen stopped her. The elf stepped back and opened the book. As the pages flipped through by their own accord, she looked up at Levinja, suddenly embarrassed. "I'm afraid my mistress is away on a journey to collect herbs in the forest. It would have been far better for her to be here to help you. But I will do my best."
Levinja could do nothing but stare, although she wanted to sigh in exasperation. So she was going to be a practice dummy for an acolyte wizard! Still, she had Elysen to thank that she was alive at all.
The elf clapped her hands. "Oh, here it is. Manticore venom and how to remove it." Her eyes slipped over the open pages as the book hovered before her. She glanced at Levinja, as though the knight had asked her something. "Oh, you kept saying the name Gulilubru. A manticore name. And the wound, on your-" The elf blushed, her high cheekbones turning the same pink as a geranium flower. "It had all the marks of a manticore's sting."
Elysen returned to her reading. She finished and closed the book slowly. Her face, revealed again, was blushing even fiercer now, red to the tips of her ears.
"It says," explained Elysen to Levinja's unasked question. "That the poison must be drawn out, manually. Or rather-"
She left the sentence unfinished. She moved closer to the couch, the book bobbing behind her head. Her face was apologetic.
"Please excuse me, but we need to turn you over."
Levinja blinked. It was all she could do. Elysen took that as permission and with the flick of a slender finger through the air, Levinja's body was wrapped in a shroud of sparkling golden light. She felt herself grow light and rise off the couch. Elysen's finger curled and Levinja rolled over in the air. She slowly floated back down onto the couch again, now lying on her stomach.
Elysen brought her face closer. Her cheeks were still pink and she was so close that Levinja could feel the heat of her embarrassment. "The venom must be drawn from the wound," she explained. "It... it should not take long."
Levinja blinked and arched her eyebrows, but Elysen was already out of sight. She had moved farther down the couch. Levinja felt soft hands on her bottom and her eyes went wide.
"Sorry," said Elysen. "I hope my hands are not too cold."
Levinja felt her tunic being drawn up, the sudden coolness of her rump as it was bared.
"Ah," murmured Elysen.
Hands were placed on either side of her wound, and they were not at all cold. The warmth of the smooth, soft touch made Levinja start and she felt a little surge of delight.
Ah. She was still affected by the manticore's venom, of course. She would not usually be so sensitive, especially to the touch of another woman.
The elf's breath, suddenly hot on Levinja's wound startled her. No doubt Elysen was examining it closely.
"P-please tell me if I hurt you," said Elysen.
Soft lips pressed against Levinja's skin and even despite the hold-person spell a gasp escaped from her. Elysen... Elysen was kissing her... there?
No, not kissing. Sucking. She felt the elf-girl's lips mouthing wet against her skin, felt a dull pain as heat was drawn to the wound from everywhere in her body. Her chest, between her legs, the back of her head - all the places where the venom had pooled.
Elysen murmured against her buttock. The girl's mouth felt very pleasant pressed against her skin. Levinja had only once before enjoyed the touch of a woman's mouth, long ago. When she had been a trainee of little more than eighteen summers her tent-mate, a girl from the Eastern Isles, had introduced her one drunken night to the pleasures a woman could give to another woman. It had been the only time Levinja had lain with a woman, but she still remembered it clearly - the girl's hungry mouth on her breasts, the delicate magic of her fingers, the hot poker of her wine-sticky tongue between her legs and her buttocks.
Levinja preferred men, but the experience had not been one she regretted. And now... and now this slim young girl was kissing her on the butt... no, not kissing - drawing out the venom. Not the kisses of love-making, but a medical procedure. And yet...
