STARLIGHT AND LACE, ch.9 - Crash

Author's Notes: And here it is. The end. The finale. Man, this was a long one. Now I was told that the ending to this was rushed/sudden and I can imagine that being true, but I did still really like it anyway. If you have any input or thoughts, feel free to comment below (if you can figure out how, Patreon is sort of a pain in the ass sometimes).

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[story] [F/F] [D/s] [finale]

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A thin ray of sunlight bled in through the edges of the heavy drapes insulating Sina’s room, narrowly illuminating the sight of two bare forms, intertwined with one another on the bed. The sheets were drawn away, for now -- Issalana had seen little use for them when she took such great delight in seeing Sina’s frail, nude figure, not to mention keeping her new plaything warm with her own body.

Even now, cradled on the bed of Sina’s quarters, Issa had her arms wrapped protectively around the smaller girl, lightly caressing that shimmering hair of hers and keeping Sina’s face nestled warmly against the Estyan’s full chest, smothered contently between those two round, smooth orbs. Sina’s hands, as well, were wrapped around the larger woman, clinging to her waist as two pairs of smooth legs entangled with each other.

It had been a few days, now, since Issa Southwinds had staked her de facto claim on the wife of Tharis Endon. Some things had changed, while others had stayed the same -- sex was more frequent, and Sina was less resistant to doing what was asked of her. It was strange how well she’d taken to her new role, once she’d come to the realization that her conditioning had taken a full, permanent hold upon her. It didn’t matter what she had wanted or hoped for, at this point... she belonged to Issa as she would have belonged to Tharis. It was only a matter of properly training her and then strengthening that grip. It had taken time, but at long last, everything seemed to work. Seemed to fit.

Just as it had changed, however, it had also stayed the same. Despite Issa claiming that she was not her lady’s lesser any longer, she still played the part of servant, cleaning Sina’s clothes, making her food, and insisting on bathing her. The relationship now, however, was more as a perversion between mother and daughter than it was a mistress and her servant. Issa’s caretaking more closely resembled pampering than it did genuine servitude.

“So soft,” Issa whispered quietly, caressing her opposite hand along Sina’s slim figure, stroking from her shoulder down along the delicate curve of her side and small hip, tilting the other girl’s head up a little to gently kiss her lips. Her hand began to wander a little more, teasing one small breast to make Sina shiver just a little, relishing in the sight of her tiny frame jittering at her touch. Such power she held, the power to make Sina feel however she wanted, with or without the little Vay’s consent or desire. No worrying about moods, or the right time. When Issa willed it, it happened. In that, the two of them were not equals -- Issalana was in charge.

“Thank you,” the pale girl whispered back, biting her lip before hesitantly returning the kiss, clinging a little closer. This was wrong, something in the back of her mind still knew that and wouldn’t let her forget it -- being with another woman was never something she’d had the least inclination towards in the past, but now... it was like Issa’s sway over her transcended sexuality. She was as much a possession as she was a lover, and in that strange way, it was freeing. She kissed Issa again, softly, peacefully, before nuzzling back into the olive expanse of her cleavage, burying face between those soft globes and just letting the comfort of the moment claim her, wash away her fears and her doubts....

...Until a firm knock came at the door, something that hadn’t happened in quite some time. Nobody had any use for Sina, not really. She’d attended court once or twice as a gesture and nothing more, Tharis had made it fairly obvious that she had no real power over the politics of Crannith, and to be honest, Sina preferred it that way. Let her remain a ruler in name only, as she was in every other way.

The knock itself though, loud and sure, did admittedly catch Sina off guard. “Should I...?” she whispered, only to have Issalana press her finger to the girl’s lips before kissing them again, her hand caressing down along her naked form one last time before she pulled up to the edge of the bed.

“I will see to it,” the Estyan said softly, stretching out her voluptuous figure and giving Sina a long moment to admire her nature, curvaceous beauty, her full breasts and perky, barbell-pierced nipples. It was a strange admiration, or had been, like observing a work of art. At first. Now, whether through a genuine change of mind or through excessive conditioning and forced orgasms, Issalana’s figure signaled impulses of sex and lust and passion in Sina’s mind, making her squirm at the mere sight of that womanly form stretching out, every inch of skin visible to be admired, drunk in.

Finally lifting herself from the bed, Issa neglected to clothe herself as she went to the door, opening it flippantly and popping one hip to the side to greet whoever was visiting, as if purposefully attempting to intimidate them with her nudity. Sina was unable to hear exactly what was said, only hear that the Vay -- for the visitor was indeed Vay -- on the other side of the door wasn’t intimidated in the least. In fact, they sounded angry. Hushed, confrontational words were exchanged back and forth between Issalana and whoever the visitor was, Sina struggling to hear from the bedroom but picking up very little. The stone walls of her appointed quarters, much as they held heat and cold, seemed to absorb sound and prevent it from carrying too very far.

“Get it done. We won’t ask again,” was the final and most clear thing Sina heard the visitor say, sitting up in bed and shyly covering her chest. The door was shut firmly, and Issa came back into the bedroom... though without the seductive sway of her bare hips or the lustful hunger in her voice.

“Start packing your things, lady of mine,” the Estyan said firmly, leaving no room for argument. “We’re leaving. Now.”

“L-leaving? What do you mean? Leaving the castle?” Sina chewed her bottom lip, not getting out of bed yet despite the urgency in her maid and dominant lover’s voice.

“Leaving Crannith.”

Questions immediately began to swim and bob around in Sina’s mind, though the pertinent ones were mostly lost in the endless sea of repetitive but why?s that plagued her. Eventually, after thinking for a long moment, the most pervasive question won out and escaped her lips. “...But why?”

Issa fixed her new charge with an icy stare for a long moment, breathing in deeply through her nose. Sina would need to be taught better obedience in the future, but for now it could be forgiven. The thing that bothered the Estyan most was what she had to now confess. “Little Sina, have you ever wondered why I was taken from off of a ship to the east to be your maid? Did you never think it was very strange?”

“I... I mean, kind of. But no. Not specifically. I thought it was a cultural thing or something.”

“I was not chosen by Lord Endon, my lady. I was chosen by a Vay ambassador, an advisor who arranged your quarters and caretaking once you arrived. A woman known only, to me, as the Emerald Saint.” Issalana sighed quietly, going through the wardrobe that Sina and herself now shared, and withdrawing some undergarments from it, starting to shimmy into a pair of ocean blue, thigh-cut panties. “I am not a maid, Sina, I never was. I am an assassin -- and the Vay have grown impatient with me.”

Assassin? “Assassin?” She was really going to need to stop doing that. “But who would you possibly... I mean, who would you...?”

Issa blinked, tilting to look back at Sina as she fitted her jerkin into place, forgoing a brassiere for the moment and instead letting the darkly tanned leather embrace her considerable bust, leaving an expanse of dusky cleavage exposed. “Poor Sina. You are still so young,” she whispered, then inhaled, preparing to explain. “You, little one. You are my mark, you always were. Why would the Vay create a legitimate alliance with a nation they could far more easily conquer?”

“To... well, to avoid bloodshed and strengthen Southworld. It benefits everyone involved.”

“The Vay have no concern over who benefits, except for themselves. The best way to conquer Crannith without gaining a reputation as plutocratic butchers was to create a false alliance that they could then shatter at a moment’s notice. With you, their starlight darling, slit from groin to throat on the steps of the Drathwyn court, they could have their war and nobody would bat an eyelash. They take all the kadnivite they like, leave Crannith in ashes, and nobody’s the wiser.”

Sina blinked. It made sense in a way she didn’t want to look at too hard, flipping her perspective on many things as her world crumbled yet again. That the people she trusted, her people.... “The Vay contingent that came to check up on me...?”

“Had no concern for your relationship with the basileus. They wanted to let me know the time had come for you to die. As long as it looked like Tharis did the deed himself, they could easily wash their hands of the entire thing. At the same time, they gave the illusion of caring for your safety -- two birds with one stone.” Issa pulled her skirt into place and tied it off with one of her long sashes, tying her bandana back around her head as she usually did. “It’s time for you to get dressed, my lady. Wear the black garment I chose for you, and your riding cloak. For the next few hours, it’s important that nobody knows who you are. Soon we’ll be gone.”

“When you said we would get away from this place,” Sina mused, staring at the wall in front of her as her mind was dump shocked with information. “You meant it. You knew we wouldn’t be able to stay here, if you didn’t... if you didn’t kill me.”

“Which I have no plan to.” A sharp exhalation from her nostrils, and Issalana reached back into the wardrobe to withdraw the garments she’d just mentioned, tossing them at Sina. “Dressed. Now.”

That sharp tone stirred Sina from her well of thought, and she quickly caught the little black dress and began to slide her thin, naked frame inside of it, drawing the cloak around her shoulders and pulling up the hood as she began to search for a pair of boots that would fit. It all felt so cold and sudden -- for the first time, her heart wasn’t thumping in her chest like an epileptic rabbit. The amount of information was too much to simply process, and in absence of a solution that worked for her, she fell back on Issa’s instructions. Relying on the other woman to guide her and protect her. That made sense. That was simple. “Why didn’t you kill me?” she finally asked, pausing as she sifted slowly through her drawer of socks to find something that matched her dress, a color she infrequently wore.

It was Sina’s turn to give Issa pause, who briefly stopped organizing clothes and supplies and packing them into a pair of small cases, along with whatever money and valuables she could take from the room. “Why do you think I treat you the way I do, little Sina?” she said, her voice low, not seductive but serious. “I care about you. The first day I saw you I was met with an inner conflict I haven’t felt since I left my son behind to become a Lancer. There’s something special about you, something delicate. Something I wanted to preserve.” Tilting her head to the side to regard Sina, the Estyan reached out to pull the other girl close, their bodies meeting just before Issalana tilted her head down to claim Sina’s lips in a long, soft kiss, drawing a muffled squeak, followed by a comforted moan. It was the best answer Sina could have gotten, and she accepted it fully.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

“It’ll take a few hours to get ‘er ready to move, Southwinds,” the boatman growled when the two of them finally arrived at the docks of the Townyard -- not the skyway that Sina had come in on, the one she was used to. No, this was a shady area of outer Drathwyn, barely stretching out through the slums to reach the eastern sea. It was a foul, dark place, reeking of shellfish and cluttered with thick, bizarre accents; the boatman himself was inscrutable to Sina, a mess of reddish pigment and stringy hair the color of dirty ashes. Judging from that, and his impenetrable accent, Sina guessed that he was some kind of half-breed. Estyan and Nathenet, maybe.

“I don’t have a few hours, Net,” Issa said, her voice firm, straightening her posture to loom her impressive height over the crooked little sailor. “If I don’t leave now, I’ll be dealing with the Emerald Saint. If she finds out that you talked to me, you’ll be dealing with the Emerald Saint too.”

The boatman narrowed his eyes, growling a muffled “fuck” under his breath before speaking up. “Easy for you to say, I’ll still be in Drathwyn if the Saint comes knocking. You picked a fucked up person to piss off, Southwinds.”

“You sail the ship, then. Get us as far east as we can go. Get out of Crannith and stay gone -- consider that a valuable piece of information. It won’t be here much longer.”

“That bad,” Net rasped, blinking his bleary reddish eyes and turning to glance at the docked ship behind him, a small one. Most of those on board were unimpressive sailors, there to scrub up barnacles and bloodstains in between shipments out. They could do the job, though, if they were truly this pressed for time. “Fuck, fine, get on. Don’t let the sailors see your little girlfriend, either, been a while since they had some decent slash. They know not to fuck with you, but she may not be so safe.”

“They’ll learn not to fuck with her,” Issa said firmly, taking the Vay girl’s hand and leading her up the gangplank. It was barely a matter of seconds before Net was barking out commands, getting the ship ready to move out with the makeshift crew of scrubbers and pleasure-boys.

The name of the ship was The Bride.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

The helinaut siege that had rained down on Drathwyn years ago had, in no way, prepared its citizens or its limited military for what happened in the following days. The Vay contingent made an official inquiry as to the whereabouts of Sina T’i later the same day that she’d left with Issalana, and a thorough search of the castle had been done.

The last anyone had seen of Sina had been her running, in tears and half-naked, from Tharis Endon’s room. After that, she had vanished along with her maid -- the Vay painted that as the Kaldric simply “tying up loose ends.” It worked. More importantly, it was all they needed to get their war.

The Vay had far too much time to prepare for the war they’d orchestrated, considerably more than the soft, lazy mini-nation of Crannith. When those fractal portals had started opening around the Townyard, gushing forth legions of Vay dragoons in their blue-enameled armor, a third of Drathwyn’s combative population died before any kind of counter-attack was measured. Tharis, of course, hid in the castle itself, praying to the Specters for the day when all of this would end. It wasn’t going to. It didn’t.

Raddeus Thex was reinstated as a field commander after his old successor was wiped out by a fractal blast from a rival Vay captain. And, just as he had when the Nathenet had attacked, he began the quickest draft he possibly could while smattered remains of soldiers rallied around the castle, protecting it with their lives as the unstoppable juggernaut of the Vay stampeded forward. Pirates, thugs, mercenaries, and -- yes -- engineers were conscripted as soldiers once again in their desperate fight to protect their home, however flawed, from the endless army that threatened to swallow it whole.

Even Leli was put in a leg brace, a Railer put back into her small hands with the promise that she’d be a hero, that she’d take back Drathwyn for the LowKal. It was never confirmed whether or not she survived the ensuing siege, an endless bloody battle that lasted until the human royalty were eventually starved out, too weak to protect themselves from the onslaught. It is, however, said that more dead Vay were found with spikes through their chest than any other means of death.

Sina T’i had never had a choice in what happened in that war, thousands of lives lost because she was given in marriage to a man she didn’t know. The starlight darling, a mere pawn to be sacrificed, to instigate a conflict in which the Vay would invariably come out ahead. The number of soldiers they lost in that battle -- now called the War of One Moon because it lasted only a single month -- were well worth the amount of kadnivite ore that was raped from that defenseless little island. Sina never had a choice in what happened, but that didn’t stop it from happening anyway.

She never had a choice, but what she had now was Issa. And no matter how... strange, their relationship may have begun, it was worth everything. She didn’t have to worry about what happened on Crannith. Sina was cared for, she was free, and she was happy.