Chapter 101: 101: Gunslinging Temptress

Grace was indeed up to kissing some energy into me, but we kept it fairly PG to avoid making everyone else uncomfortable. With me full of power, we walked off to a remote corner of my upper plateau. Using the magic that she’d just given me, I grew several trees at the edge of a cliff and flattened out one side. That way, the shots would go out into the void, and they’d have a place to pin actual targets if they wanted them.

“So how does it work?” I asked, standing a yard back and to the side of her. Everyone else was arrayed on some hastily grown vine chairs, like we were all a bunch of Victorian ladies and Grace was a gentleman showing off her new toy.

Claih was the one to pipe up and explain it, using the opportunity to walk Grace through the process one last time. “I’ve already told you this, but it never hurts to triple check. Fold the barrel forward to expose the core chamber, then slide in a filled canister.”

Grace did as she was told, opening the gun like a very very careful cowboy. She pulled a small stubby cylinder of glass from her bandolier, one mercifully filled with good old fashioned lime flavoured magic. The verdant magic was then slotted into the waiting cylinder of the gun, which she snapped shut with an audible clack.

“Unlike a more traditional projectile weapon, or even a mass produced magitech gun, this one will understand your intentions,” Claih continued once Grace was ready. “You may discharge the entire canister in one devastating blast, or portion it up into as many as eight deadly bolts. Sixteen if you wish to leave your enemy injured, but alive. Try firing a non-lethal bolt first.”

Once the obrec woman was safely behind her, Grace raised the gun and aimed at one of the trees as best she could without iron sights. Those of us gathered around to watch the test collectively held our breath, waiting for the shot.

It was sudden, when she pulled the trigger. A flash of light and a small bolt of green energy tore across the intervening distance between the gun and the tree, almost too fast for the eye to track. A small splash of green light could be seen against the bark of the tree. I gave a laugh of surprised amusement when, rather than there being a burn or whatever, a small green branch grew where the bolt had impacted. Of course, why would raw life giving growth energy put a hole in anything?

Grace, smiling with eager triumph, aimed again and fired, but this time the projectile of magical energy was larger. It looked for all the world like a blurred arrow as it flew and struck the target. This time a larger branch all but exploded out of the tree, spontaneously flowering as it did so. The force of the growth was so intense that the petals of the newly budded flowers immediately exploded out in a confetti stream.

“Holy moly,” Bray exclaimed from beside me. “That was something!”

“Really cool,” I nodded, surprised to see him there. I hadn’t noticed him take the spot next to me. “Think you can make more?”

Turning his grin in my direction, he said, “I hope so. This magitech stuff is so much more intuitive than our tech.”

I nodded, my thoughts almost immediately going off on a tangent, and I mused, “Yeah. Could be because magic is sort of controlled and manipulated directly with the mind in a lot of cases. It has an inherent sort of base intelligence to it.”

“More like wisdom,” he said, picking up the train of thought. “Our tech is intelligence or knowledge, right? It can follow a convoluted set of instructions to the absolute letter, taking input to make decisions along the way. Magic seems like it’s got wisdom, though. It doesn’t need every decision branch spelled out for it.”

“Huh…” He had a point. A really interesting point. “So you could mix and match them both based on the task you need done. A calculator using normal tech, and magic for something that’s less about exact numbers, like—”

My words were cut off when the tree exploded into flaming splinters of wood. I ducked and flinched automatically, but the carnage had shotgunned out off the cliff in a cone instead. Holy hell… what had just happened?

Grace, bright red with embarrassment, turned sheepishly to look at her audience. “Okay… so firing an entire canister of fire magic makes a big explosion. Good to know…”

"Oh my goodness," I laughed walking over to her. Taking the gun out of her hands, I held it out to Claih. "Well, it works. I assume it's going to need a chassis, though?"

Claih took the weapon with a smile of good natured amusement. "Indeed. I suspect we will need to test each of her magicks to see how the gun uses them. Explosive surprises are… generally frowned upon in my line of work."

"Almost all," Grace said with a pointed glance down at a deceptively benign red canister. "I think I'll leave that one alone until I have much more experience with the gun."

"Ah… yes, agreed," Claih nodded, staring at the canister like it might try to eat everyone then and there.

****

The moment I had spotted Grace across the grass earlier, a yearning had been steadily building in my chest. As we wrapped up the little testing session, it grew to become an almost painful lump. I was tired, a little emotionally raw from the coffee shop, and very much ready to get my girlfriend alone.

So, when we finally got into our room to change into more comfortable clothes for the evening, I turned to Grace and said, "Hey… can you hug me please?"

Careful not to trip over her discarded jacket on the floor, she took the two steps needed to reach me, folding me into her safe embrace. My hands found their way to her back, and I let out a shuddering sigh of relief.

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Gods, I had needed this hug. I had needed it so fucking badly.

"What's wrong?" she asked, burying her face in my hair.

"The day was too long," I murmured, soaking myself in her presence. "Too long, and it didn't have enough of you in it."

"You can say that again," she sighed, pulling me even closer.

Gosh, I loved her. I loved her so much. The way her body just barely enveloped mine, not too much taller, it was perfect. Her fingers too, how they dug gently into my waist, accentuating her desire to hold me and my feminine figure all at once.

There were so many little things, sensations and movements, all of them adding up to her. Another person who felt the same mind-searing affection that I held for her. It would never get old, and never was a long time for us.

“Mmmmm,” I hummed, snuggling my face into her neck. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she said, pressing a kiss into my hair.

That reminded me that Grace had lips, so I leaned my head back and captured them with my own. Her lips were warm and faintly rough from a long day of training under the sun, but that changed when I ran my tongue over their length. Soft with moisture now, they parted to let me in, and I eagerly took the invitation.

I loved doing this, lapping at her tongue with mine. Nothing like kisses in movies and anime though, where it looks like two slugs having a duel. No, just a flicker of movement. Sensation from the contact caused sparks to zip down my tongue, where they hitched a ride on my spine in all directions. Even better was the effect it had on her. The way her breath hitched every time I did it, and goosebumps rippled up her forearms.

She’d taken her top off as we got inside, so I had access to a lot of delicious skin. Access that I took full advantage of, running my hands up her waist and then down to the band of her sports bra.

I got a shudder out of her as I traced the skin just below it. A fingertip slipped just barely under the fabric, and I ran my finger along the imprint her bra had left on her otherwise smooth skin. I massaged all along that line, pushing the band up a little to let her poor flesh recover from the cursed implement of torture.

“Oh, that feels nice,” she whispered, parting from our kiss just long enough to say the words before she dove back in.

A nip of affection at my bottom lip had me smiling and lapping at hers using that same flickering tongue motion that she loved. She let out a giggle and pulled me closer, gently crushing me and my roving fingers to her chest.

Towing me backwards, she flopped us both down onto the bed, me on top of her. Having my weight land on her didn’t seem to faze her in the slightest, and it was so damned awesome. It was just one of those things that made me feel so good about being a girl. It emphasised how light I was, and yeah… it just made me feel great. She knew it too, which was probably why she’d done it. Gods, I loved her so freaking much.

Reigniting our kiss took a moment of positioning, but then we lost ourselves in each other. It wasn’t really a sexual thing though, we were just enjoying each other. The warmth of our bodies, the softness of skin on skin, and the small sounds of happiness. It all merged together into an hour of heaven.

Sadly, it needed to end. Cad was probably extremely lost and confused by now, and he’d need guidance on what to do with himself. I just hoped that Lua was treating him well.

“Ugh,” I grumbled, pushing myself up onto an elbow. “I don’t want to stop but… we need to get changed and be social.”

“I know…” Grace grumbled, staring up at me with her hair all disheveled and gorgeous. I reached out and ran a hand through it, marveling at the play of light through the different colours. So damned pretty.

“Maybe we should start taking weekends off,” I mused, running a thumb over her hairline. “Or at least one day a week. We can’t keep going on like this after all.”

I nodded with whole hearted agreement. “I’m starting to miss you so much throughout the day that it hurts.”

Her answering smile was so full of love that I couldn’t help but lean down to kiss her again. Maybe Cad would be fine after all… we could stay a little longer, right?

QuietValerie

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