Last Rites of Empire | TWO
a novel by Ophelia Everfall
Last Rites of Empire
By Ophelia Everfall
Content Warning
TWO
Neil had plenty of company in his time away from the Queen of Hydralûm to-be. She was a goddess he’d missed, playing her tune so well. Neil longed for it with her down in front of him most. He sought it on top of her. He’d craved her with every other he laid with after. It was a fact of the body remembered at once as she resumed her place between his thighs.
Gloria was a glory of glorifying gratuitousness. It was glorious.
When she’d ripped Neil around by a fist-full of his longest hair he’d become awestruck. She’d been kind before. Something had taken that from the woman. He realized it was him when she’d taken his pussy with her fiercest timber. Gloria was some rock of the earthen place she knew home. Her seaside place of rest. That cavefront she’d loom before. Her delves within would prove some boon.
This is my bitch.
“Neil,” Gloria whispered into his ear.
“You’re my bitch now.”
Quivers were pinching the boy into a knot of holding around the Queen’s rodded staff. She’d been gripping it tightly. Hers wasn’t hers to use anymore. Neil had been telling her things. She’d not wanted to listen. But she had.
Gloria couldn’t touch anymore. She was only to be his little girl when they spoke. He seemed most at home using a timbre of voice alike that spoken to a child, or dog, when he’d take her face. Something about the way she’d convulse in moan at response spoke to enjoyment found therein. All she wanted was to make him feel good. Gloria employed the best woodcarver in Jesep to make her favorite dowel smooth enough for soothing re-entries. Having Neil over to her private cabin, at the center of Kreetmarsh Swallow was a heartful thing. For the tides to turn so quickly was a sham of hidden hope seen through by her boy.
He’d made her into a little girl, for himself. It was all she wanted. Only when performing exactly how the body simply knew Neil would want did Gloria let her demon out.
Finally. Thank you.
“Relax, girl.” Were Neil’s most generous words.
“Don’t think, okay? Just don’t think anymore.”
All she’d managed as response was, “What? Oh.”
Gloria was stuck in her heart and she loved it. She’d felt this beginning from her earliest times. That moment her body and mind were stolen from her at last to become another’s in wholeness. She wasn’t going to jail like she’d always feared. Gloria was going to the prison in Neil’s heart.
The battle would be for who enjoyed it more. That would prove some loop. Each would find great differences towards their attraction. Neil’s was more frustrated. He had more room to play, but he’d hate how she always won no matter what.
She didn’t want anything but his love, and would bear his contempt, for she’d always known the boy wanted her so. Gloria could feel it in his brightest angel’s heart. She knew it from his smile in her home. She’d want it from that feeling of holding the young man upon her chest.
For her to have owned him the man. Gloria had made him that baby boy.
He would never let that go — he could never let her go. She was all for him. She’d never kiss another, never smell another’s hair, nor swing her sword for anyone else but he.
Neil was going to own the world with his slut. He’d always wanted one of those for keeps, to come own him back, and force their way into his heart with the viciousness he’d cast any out found lurking in its chambers. Gloria had snuck in the back. He’d not known how long she’d been residing there. When she revealed herself he was done for. Neil wanted to see her done for in return, and forever.
He hadn’t planned to see her again. Being forced to had ruined the boy’s panties. She was too much to bear. He’d been spurned by the way she spoke of their lovemaking. Neil hadn’t trusted her the liar at appropriate times. All he’d felt the need to do at first was fuck her tits. Someone’s tits, anyone’s tits.
Gloria cuffed herself to the cell of his prison.
She was starving herself there mercilessly. She was locking herself in uncontrollably. She’d been doing it since he left her spinning, since it all went wrong. Gloria wanted to love it. She’d wanted to be there for some reason. She needed that.
Neil was glad Gloria found that at last — feeling it within him — her intricately whittled dowel of fallen ambered wood made smooth and clean.
Torches were burning. Heroes were learning. Passion was yearning.
He has me straight spurning.
Gloria was floating. Her gown was too. She made a path to her riverbank. There had been a cold front cutting through the darkened woods of an outlasting homescape cherished. She hadn’t shared it with another before.
Neil was right behind her. He’d been telling her what to do.
It was witchcraft. He was controlling her still. How he had been in their chambers, rejoined, extended. Everything was too cold. Everything was going numb. She’d know how it would work. But Gloria felt it working instead.
He was chanting.
The boy was becoming a man before her eyes. The first real man. He’d heard through her song. Neil knew the truth of her challenge. She’d needed someone to ruin her how she wanted most. It wouldn’t be a choice she could make on her own. Everything Gloria did was aimed to taunt it out of someone. To make her do it.
If only she’d known — if only he knew.
Gloria was gone. Back — then thrown — she sank — it shrunk — things turned. The world flipped. Their sun shown. Day was night. Night was still. Moon was God. Neil found will.
I’m his forever.
Emerging from the water’s edge. She’d not believed. He seemed quite pleased. Her gait was changed. That gate she named. He’d have it all. When it was Fall. For now, that day. She’d eat away. Her mind would still. Their hearts were shrill. Then all came back. Neil was the snack.
Without her former genitalia in the way, presumed from the wholeness of form she’d walk with into their chamber. She’d found the energy cutting through her completely renewed. That woman she was had been found through magic — purest magic.
Neil kissed Gloria again, and for a first time.
Her mind had gone for good.
Neil chose targets. He’d known the way better than her.
Gloria only knew the end. She knew the point. She’d taste the blood. She fueled the fight. It took her head to be so lost. He brought her back and knew the cost. It was his smile that saw her through. She knew the way. To cut through blue.
Paddles oared through the moonlight in splashes of clashing rhythm. Neil was steady. Every other stroke by Gloria puddled awkward rebalancing from the last. It took a pair of such opposites to flow with the waters of Umuud.
Their ocean was vast. It was some scare to their people. It boxed them in. Hydralûm had been surround by it, a fortress of land rising tall. The only place any might come to know. Her land was a singularity.
Something was speaking. Someone was on the horizon. Neil was showing her where to go first. He’d seen them in her all along. Neil would known the master of her rear. That one who’d close her in. Together-three, they would cross boundaries, she’d extend bridges, and all would learn of tastes renewed.
Gloria could feel horizons. They were all true. Every one, and it was only her choice which mattered. Gloria controlled everything. She was the manipulator of time, space, and fate. It was only those few she trusted who would come to understand. To hold space for her making of truth seen fresh by all. She’d speak in tongues. She told no lies. It took the eyes. For all she spoke. It was no joke. Within the farce, her words came sparse.
Truth was an inward facing notion. To lie for someone like Gloria was a burden. She wouldn’t do it unless explicitly demanded by an individual which deserved nothing less than a falsehood to send them spinning. Whether or not they deserved that would be a matter for later reconciliation. She’d pray each night, and cry in bed, then fall asleep alone. She felt a spirit with her. Gloria knew her God well. It was some Mother, her friend, the soul of her spirit’s leader, a woman she’d known in every life, they would carry her to sleep.
They’d paddled out from shore over waves most disparate in size and force. Trifling with fortresses of power in water meant freedom. Fleeting with currents beneath had been loosening. Separating from rhythms of land led to glorious rebecoming.
Every last breath of air was a gulp. Shouts of exhalation were exultation.
Demons were men. It was seen in reflection of the moonlight to Gloria. Neil was a blessing. Their hair, it was golden by the moonlight. Telling was his smile when he’d turned. He saw it before her.
“We’re there.”
All his whisper was gone to hoarseness when the blast came blaring.
Shots were being fired — cannons. The rowing was of speeding need. Every echo from the distance, booming, left presence in their boat. Nothing came close enough to harm the two.
Gloria was going home. Something in her could tell. She did right to let Neil lead. This place they came upon would fall. Its one would join the cause.
Everything was going to be alright.
I’m going to meet Elecánt tonight.
