The Guardian Chronicles: An Encounter

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/Thoughts/

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/I knew it was too good to be true... But I believed it anyway. I was so sure that he would keep his promise.../

"How could I have been so foolish?" A tired, hoarse voice rasped out from beneath a protective waterfall of raven silk. The words, so full of bitterness, did not quite manage to hide either the cultured tone or the melodic pitch of gentleness that held no artifice, that was as true and good and kind as the generous soul who possessed it.

"I knew... Gods curse me, I knew!" Agony beyond measure rang clearly in the spoken thought, was plain in vibrant crimson eyes that shone with pain.

The figure stood up from the bed, swayed alarmingly, and regained balance with a pale hand that tightly gripped the edge of a solid, oak-brown dresser a few feet away. Though white-knuckled with tension, there was no denying the elegance in smooth digits that caught and drew the gaze to further notice the careless movements that belied an easy grace.

/He promised... He swore he would withdraw. I should have been suspicious at least./

"But like a child, I believed him. Like a foolish child, I - no. Not a child." A near-violent denial sent ebony locks swaying as anguish dulled ruby orbs into the color of dried blood. "Not even a child would be as stupid as I have been."

He stared into the mirror, taking in the image that mocked him with bright pain reflected in empty red pools. Eyes darted quickly from detail to detail, everything from uncommonly refined features that could be called beautiful by some, often haunting by others, to the too-white skin that only made the black of his hair and the red of his eyes seem almost stark... and to the tears that slid down his face - a mute testimony to his suffering.

Overcome by a sudden anger, he raised a balled-up fist and threw a punch at the mirror, directing all his hatred and disgust at the miserable creature that stood teasingly beyond his reach in the silvered glass, intent on shattering it as he wished he could do with himself.

A hand - skin only a few shades darker than his own - materialized out of thin air and caught his fist in a firm grip. He snarled and attempted to once more render the cursed being in the mirror nothing but mere shards of glass, only to have his other arm similarly captured and held.

"I do not advise expressing your anger in such a manner, Master," A smooth voice purred, verdant green eyes showing the barest hint of concern as the rest of the demon appeared before him. "You might hurt yourself."

He tried to disguise the flinch at the slightly reprimanding tone, but failed as he watched the other's gaze trace the slight, fleeting movement - noting his weakness, even if the blasted demon would never call it so. Instead of further sparking his fury, it only seemed to weigh him down, made him want to curl up behind mile-high walls that had protected him for so long, that had never failed until he foolishly, foolishly chose to abandon them at what turned out to be nothing more than broken promises...

"I don't care." He knew he sounded selfish. Sullen. Resentful. Knew it, and hated it, even as he stood helpless, bitter words pouring forth from traitorous lips. "I deserve it anyway. I deserve every ounce of suffering."

The observant gaze sharpened. "That is nothing more than self-pity, and you know it."

"Is it?" He asked brokenly. "Is it truly nothing more than self-pity? Or is it warranted punishment?"

"You know I will not deign to respond to inherently idiotic questions, Master. And pity ill-befits you. Neither does the pain you try to inflict on yourself. "

"Ah, but I am a Guardian," He spat out bitterly. "There is to be no mercy for Guardians... We take honor in the fulfillment of duty, and bow our heads to punishment should we fail. And even that is more than we deserve."

"As Gabriel so laconically put it, we're nothing more than glorified whores, and should be treated as such. To do more would be presumption and ignorance, to do less would mean we are to be discarded, holding no more use than the garbage that litters the streets of his glorious little republic- "

"And you will let a worthless piece of garbage such as that second-rate trader tell you what to think?" The demon interrupted.

Thalis gave a hollow laugh. "He was the King of Biergase, Tarryn. Even in his presently diminished state, he is hardly a trader."

The demon dismissed him with a careless wave. "Richly woven clothes and an ample treasury do not automatically entitle you to a noble status. And Gabriel - " He sneered. " - barely had that. He is no nobler than a half-blood viper, if he ever was. You would do well to ignore him, Master."

"He has hurt you gravely." Green eyes softened. "It is understandable. He not only lied to you, he used you for his own gains. He should never have - "

"Nothing. There was nothing that he should or should not have done. The fault lies entirely with me." Tortured red orbs looked up into Tarryn's. "Two nations went into war, Tarryn. I am the reason why war started between two nations! How could you say it was his fault?!"

"How could you defend him?" Tarryn shot back. "Even before we arrived, that worthless scum was already plotting the downfall of Leb•'lerae. Our arrival - "

"My stupidity made Gabriel declare war. He used me as a bargaining chip, and I let him!"

"And could you have really allowed that entire village to die?"

"I - "

"Answer me! Would you have really allowed Gabriel to annihilate an entire village when there was something you could have done to prevent it?!"

"No - but - "

"And even when you agreed to service him - " Tarryn's mouth twisted around the word. " - in return for that village's survival, how could you have known what he intended then?"

"If I had never come in the first place - "

"Then both would have been lost. Because of you, not only were the two nations - including the village - spared, you have also left the Kingdom of Biergase with a good and reliable monarch, and the people and Kieran will always remain grateful to you for it! How could you think you were still at fault for it, when you were the reason why Gabriel's conspiracy was uncovered in the first place?!"

Tarryn continued, relentless, ignoring Thalis' denials. "War would have happened anyway. Tension had been boiling between the two states for years. You not only discovered the reason for the conflict, you resolved it, and you established peace. How could you beat yourself up over something that both nations would be heralding as a historic event for generations to come?!"

His voice softened when no more protests were forthcoming. "You're the only one who thinks you did anything wrong, Thalis. No one else agrees with you... And if Kieran could see you now, he'd lock you into a room until you'd come to your senses."

"Please don't think about him, anymore." His grip on Thalis' hands tightened for a moment. "You should not allow something like him to distress you... I would kill him if I knew that would help you... Please don't blame yourself for nothing."

He wanted to remain angry. He wanted to scream and shout denials at the demon's soothing words - he was not asking to be comforted. Despite himself, his shoulders loosened, and his tightly hunched, defensive posture uncurled slightly. He could feel his anger being smoothened away - perversely, his fury sparked to life.

"Why do you care anyway, Tarryn?" He finally asked. "You're only a demon, you can't really care anyway!" He furiously tried to yank back his hands, deliberately provoking his anger with every word, unwilling to drop walls that already shook on unstable foundations. Guilt ate at his insides even as he felt pained satisfaction at the hurt he saw in the demon's eyes.

/Good./ He thought savagely. /Be hurt. Be mad./ Let him be hurt enough, make him angry enough that he'll leave, leave and never come back. Thalis stubbornly ignored the simple fact that Tarryn couldn't leave; far too entangled in a web of pained, angry emotions. For all the kind words Tarryn forced on him, Thalis knew that they weren't true. How could they be? He was worthless - he was pathetic - worse than even Gabriel.

And if Tarryn left him, he ignored the sharp dagger-like pain that thought induced, that would be one less person around him - one less person for him to hurt - one less person who'll hurt him -

So preoccupied in trying to come up with more bitter words, and encountering such difficulty as only one who was more accustomed to kindness could, he never noticed the determined glitter in the emerald gaze accompanied with weary knowledge of what Thalis was trying to do.

The guardian gasped as the grip on his hands tightened and pulled him unwillingly close into an all-too comforting embrace he immediately struggled to escape from.

"Please let me go." He gritted his teeth as he tried to wrench himself free from the hold that spoke of comfort, comfort that relentlessly pounded on his barriers, tearing them down faster than he could build them up. He didn't want the comfort, didn't want the promises that came with it that only resulted in more despair around him, resulted in tiny parts of his pathetic soul being sliced away.

A long silence followed the bare request, time in which he felt despair and hope roiling around inside of him, twisting into an unbearable coil that he was nonetheless prepared to accept no matter what the cost, so long as Tarryn would be safe -

"No." The response, given with almost infuriating aplomb, surprised the other man so much all he could do was blink incredulously for a few moments.

"Curse you, Tarryn, let me go!" He all but yelled, again pulling at the entrapping circle of arms.

"I will not. Besides, you do not wish me to."

Stunned surprise greeted his statement, and his struggles quieted for a brief moment. "Are you mad?!" He finally managed. "Why do you think I'm struggling then? For fun??"

The demon looked down at him, sculpted features uncommonly serious. "If you had really wanted me to let go, you would have commanded me to do so." Tarryn's grip tightened. "You did not."

"You know I wouldn't do that!" The other man flushed angrily, and Tarryn admired the rise of color in the guardian's skin even as the struggling resumed. "Let me go! I can't believe you would even think I'd do something like that to you! You know how I hate commanding you - ordering you around like some sort of servant - as if you didn't have a mind and will of your own - "

"Do I?" Tarryn asked quietly, startling him into silence. I thought I was only here to serve you, Master. I thought I was only a demon."

"No!" Thalis protested hotly, even as he flinched as his own words were thrown back at him. "I promised to find some way to release you of your bonds to me, and I will honor it!"

"Then why did you call me 'only a demon' a while ago, if you truly did not think of me thus? Why do you dismiss what I say, giving them no import, as if I were nothing more than a mere servant?"

"..." No response, the struggles slowly dying down.

"Why do you refuse to let me act as a friend, telling me to go away, when my only desire is to comfort you as a friend should?" The words died down to a whisper as the embrace loosened, and warm hands stroked lightly along the curve of the slighter man's back. "As a lover would?"

He felt Thalis unwillingly relax into his caress, slowly leaning against him as tense muscles loosened.

Tarryn allowed a faint, brief smile of victory to flash across his lips. Knowing the ins and outs of a guardian's anatomy was worth the study in times like these.

"I only want to make you happy, Thalis," He whispered. "Nothing would gladden me more than to see you content, satisfied..." He brushed a light kiss across open lips. "Sated, in my arms."

"You know it as well as I do, Tarryn," His breathing hitched as the stroking morphed into slightly deeper, pressing touches in the inside of his shoulder blades, sending bright, hot sparks of pleasure running up and down his spine. "I've told you before, I can't have a lover, and I can't take advantage of y - nghh!"

The demon's fingers firmly pushed down on the sensitive nerves in his back, relishing in the gasping cry it produced, glad to interrupt the protests he'd heard and vocally disregarded a thousand times before.

His fingers lightened into caresses once more. "And you know I don't care about that, Thalis. Your objections now are as groundless as the blame you feel yourself deserving of, and I grow weary of it."

The guardian shook his head. "You know w-why," He tried in vain to keep his voice steady, unable to do so as the touches along his spine grew stronger once more. "Y-you know w-why I can't, and - " Eyes that were clouding over in slowly rising pleasure gained a hint of suspicion. "H-how do you kn-know to - to touch m-my back an-any-way?"

A secretive smile curved the edges of Tarryn's lips. "That's for me to know, and you to find out. But I also know this."

He bent down, and nibbled along the smooth, pale column of Thalis' neck. "I want you, and," He sucked on a patch of skin at the junction of neck and shoulder, whispering a few words of magic that hummed in the air and caused the guardian's shirt to dissolve. "I'm going to have you. I'm tired of waiting."

"You can't, Tarryn," He finally stirred in the demon's embrace as he felt long digits on his bare skin. The muscles in his arms tensed as he prepared to push himself away. "I told you, you can't, and I don't want to - ah-ahh!"

He arched against Tarryn in a vain attempt to escape the fingers that determinedly followed him, pressing against far-too responsive nerves that shot little jolts of ecstasy throughout his body and woke hot arousal in the pit of his belly.

His vision was shot with white sparks as he furiously tried and miserably failed to clear his mind, blinking away the red haze that settled over his thoughts, dulling his movements and intensifying the sensations, leaving him blind to the attentive gaze that assessed his every reaction.

The owner of which found himself thoroughly dissatisfied and oddly pleased with the results. On the one hand, he couldn't believe that someone, a guardian - hells, anyone, really - could be so unaware and na•ve about his own erogenous zones.

He had once thought it impossible that someone such as Thalis could be truly ignorant. But the way in which the gasping, moaning guardian in his arms responded to his stimulation, with such artless - token unwillingness summarily ignored - desire, completely lacking in either sexual sophistication or finesse, bespoke of total unawareness of his own body's wants and needs. He personally felt it was downright criminal that such a beautiful creature had no idea of what he would physically enjoy beyond theory.

On the other hand... It was thrilling, more so than Tarryn would care to admit aloud, to be the first to draw the guardian to the very precipice of pleasure, and drive him still higher. The clawing need to be the first, to be the only one to put carnal knowledge into crimson eyes became more of an obsession with every passing moment. He fought a losing war with himself as the growing desire to take and claim began to override the need for restraint.

Emerald eyes darkened with lust as the guardian arched against him once more, unintentionally brushing across his erection as Thalis tried to evade determined touches in the only direction open to him, entrapped as he was in the circle of his demon's arms.

Delicacy be damned! He was going to pound every ounce of self-possession in Thalis into submission, and send it flying out the window.

Another gasp escaped the guardian's lips as the demon thrust his knee in between his legs, nudging against the rising bulge and lifting him up against the wall he hadn't realized he'd been backed into. He felt a hand forcefully tilt his head back as teeth bit into the side of neck, sending a burst of pain that was soothed by a quick swipe of a hot tongue, before the demon repeated the process.

"I can, and I will." Appreciative eyes devoured the arousing sight of Thalis with his legs spread to either side on the wall, writhing against inescapable contact as he pushed further up with his knee and prodded firmly with his fingers. A smirk formed across sensuous lips as breathy gasps and moans continuously poured from deliciously red lips. "I'm sick and tired of watching you deny yourself when I'm more than willing to satisfy you."

His lips traveled down and found a dusky nipple. He drew it into his mouth, sucking harshly, relishing in the agonized cry of pleasure. He forced Thalis to arch into the sensation with the hand at his back, ignoring clawing fingers at his skin as he not so incidentally stimulated already raw nerves. He laved the puckered bud of flesh with his tongue, before moving to the next and giving it the same treatment, earning himself a wavering cry. "You have more pain and suffering in your life than any being, mortal or otherwise, has a right to have."

"Even though I'm a demon," He murmured a command, and the rest of his and Thalis' clothes dissolved into dust. The hand holding the guardian's head up left it, traveling down to circle the erect cock jutting out from the other's body, wrapping around it and stroking it harshly from root to tip, giving Thalis no chance to catch his breath, shoving the sensations at him. "The Prince of Demons, actually,"

He swallowed the guardian's moan, enveloping the shudders in a hard kiss. His tongue swept across Thalis' lips, biting and sucking at them until they parted in unwilling submission. He forced them wider apart as he laid claim to the treasure inside moist caverns, mapping them out and sucking all the air from Thalis' lungs, leaving no room for denial. He finally pulled away, tilting Thalis' chin up, feeling pure satisfaction at the breathless pants that filled the air between them. "I simply won't stand for it."

"You're also my Intended." Emerald eyes captured ruby orbs dazed with pleasure, the commanding force behind the gaze stilling the guardian's denial that he never even agreed to that. He leaned in close, the fingers at Thalis' shoulders stilling for a brief moment. "And you will have pleasure if I have to force it down your stubbornly noble throat. I not only require it," He continued stroking the other's length even as he deliberately pushed hard into Thalis' back. "I demand it." His smirk widened at the resultant scream.

Ecstasy flooded throughout the guardian's body as Tarryn mercilessly prodded the contracting muscles in his back, stimulating the sensitive nerves again and again until his senses spun and deserted him, leaving only an overwhelming, overriding pleasure that demanded nothing less but his complete attention.

He barely noticed the change of position as he was laid onto the bed, as fingers deserted his length, the constant jolts of electricity doing enough to render him oblivious to anything else.

As lost in pleasure as he was, even Thalis couldn't ignore the feeling of slick digits prodding at his entrance. He felt magic swirling around him, taking hold of his legs and stretching them wide, spreading him open to Tarryn's hot gaze. He flushed in embarrassment, determinedly ignoring the appreciative gaze that made him feel more naked than being stripped of all his clothing as he reached an arm out to push the demon off.

Only to have his wrist captured and pinned to his side. "Now stop that," came the irritatingly patronizing tone, "and keep your arm there like a good little guardian about to be fucked through the mattress."

The guardian's eyes widened almost comically, his mouth shutting with an audible snap as he felt the finger wriggle around, reaching past the defensive ring of muscle, exploring as though it were searching for something though whatever it was Thalis had no clue as to what could possibly be hidden there and -

"Ahhh!!" He screamed, eyes opened wide and body stiffening in a rigid arch as pleasure exploded from two different points in his body. He fell back onto the bed, gasping for breath, finally able to as Tarryn's hand moved down from his back, as well as releasing the captured arm. "T-Tarryn, what are you do-nnnggh!!"

"Hush," The demon almost absent-mindedly said as he pushed a second finger inside Thalis, stretching him. "Just relax."

The guardian reached for him, intent on flinging Tarryn off his body, or at the very least make him stop, when something grabbed his arms and slammed his wrists down together above his head, and kept them there.

"I told you to relax," Tarryn said in a chiding voice, even as a third and fourth finger made its way into his body despite the obvious wince and worked on loosening the still tight ring of muscle. "How do you expect to enjoy this if you don't let me prepare you?"

"Tar-Tarryn!" He managed to gasp out, fingers grabbing desperately at nothing, unable to ground himself into reality which was what, a small, detached part of Thalis' mind thought, Tarryn probably wanted. "Tarryn please sto-aahh!"

"Hmm..?" The innocent tone hardly matched the deliberate way torturous fingers twisted and curled inside of him, rubbing at the small gland that sent waves of rapture singing along his nerves.

"What was that? Tarryn please... stop?" He ignored the gasping affirmation the guardian attempted to make, effectively distracting him with a sharp prod, before he pulled his fingers out.

The demon moved into place amidst the confusingly acute sense of emptiness Thalis felt at the loss of long fingers. "Tarryn please I want you? Or..." A slick, blunt head made itself known to the guardian as it nudged his entrance.

"Tarry please... more?" The demon's eyebrow rose in a parody of surprise. "And here I thought you couldn't handle much more ... For once, I'm happy I was wrong." The tip of the thick cock slid just barely past Thalis' entrance, and already the guardian felt stretched beyond endurance.

"Well. All right then." He shrugged, pretending indifference. "Far be it from me to deny you."

He shifted slightly, relishing the ensuing gasp. He paused for a single, indeterminable moment before brutally sliding his considerable length into Thalis in one vicious thrust, smug satisfaction gleaming in his eyes as Thalis screamed.


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AN: A teaser for an extremely long original series I've been working on aside from my other projects. Now don't panic - although at the moment I've no plans for posting said series, I did publish the second part of the teaser. Breathe... And Just click the button that says 'next chapter' to see the end of the teaser. Hope you enjoy it! ^_^

Cheers,
Jade Ai