The Foundry | Part Three | Chapter Twenty-Nine
the next chapter of my forthcoming novel
The Foundry
by Daphne Garrido
Part Two | Rebuilt; Refound; Reclaimed
Part Three | Dominion
Part Four | Unmasked; Unbound; Unleashed
Chapter Twenty-Nine
A strangest air filled the spaces between all who were standing in Council. Not only had the tragedy topside ridden fright within each one, causing need to make a difference somehow, the event had ignited a newfound fire shared between all to at last discover their enemy.
These meetings had become a daily affair, and the cast of characters was always the same. There was the Orator, Commander, and Investigator. Along with Ekara, and the oldest living administrators of the foundry; a couple. Pauline and Marcus Demitrus — a two who’s royalty was earned and not given, claimed by right of virtue — no part of this great system The Foundry had become would exist without all which their love had seen into being.
Beyond the administration, it was only Echo herself, Rory, Leopold, and Alan. Alongside Jocé Remance and Simion Hareth, those two most recent graduates, and the pilots of Silence and Epoch respectively.
The Foundry’s second quarter had long since passed, at least, in terms of timelines. All formal structure to an initiate’s education had been forgone in favor of each leading themselves at the speed which their own heart called them to move. Very few had chosen to pursue their task with lesser commitment than Echo was inspired towards upon her defeat in Apocalypse. Such were the ways of war.
Things were moving fast. The Gauntlet wouldn’t have to be run by anyone. Every life was now considered beyond sacred; needed.
It would be the seniors; pilots, who would deem an initiate’s warship ready to be made into physical reality. Nothing would hold one back except their own ability to prove themselves with those whom they’d sought to fight beside. Many would wonder why it hadn’t been this way to begin with, in time.
Still, Echo was going to run The Gauntlet if it was the last thing she did. Nobody would take that away from her, and there would be zero chance she’d accept some lesser-made version which provided less-mortal stakes. That girl had a dream, and she could taste it. The thought getting back to it herself, and challenging it alone, as she’d failed to before and then believed herself incapable, was proving most appealing.
Alan had been assuming he’d go with her eventually, but Echo wasn’t so sure about that now. Her excellence was proving quite profound. There’d be some thought within her, of perhaps, getting to run The Gauntlet exactly as she’d originally hoped after all. It felt too good a chance for one to pass up long-term. Though, she acknowledged these notions as the slippery slope for her mental wellbeing they were — familiar ones at that — resolving to take things one day at a time.
This day, she’d been quite enamored with a look she’d seen on Alan’s face as he watched her standing there amidst the leadership of The Foundry, beneath that epic paintwork of The Council Chamber’s mural, adorned in the newest flowing kimono she’d been obsessed with.
It was finally time. A part of her felt strange to see that glint in his eyes. Especially in the face of all which had recently befallen their family here. Cameron’s loss was hard on Echo, only because there’d been such a precious seed of hope in that way they’d first met which now felt squandered.
Cameron certainly wouldn’t be on her mind for long though.
“Oh, fuck yes,” was the mantra of the moment for Echo.
She’d repeated it again with a dash of brevity, a sprinkle of dramatic pause, just a bit more fry on the words, and that final bit of emphasis to make it hit right in her heart, “Fuck — yes.”
Echo didn’t exactly understand what it was that made someone good at getting railed. She’d only known, whatever that was, she wielded it with abundance. This remembrance had come back most profoundly by reflection of that shuddering in Alan’s thighs as she’d pressed back into him. The way she tossed her hair would have him speeding so quickly, and the arching of her back found his hands smoothing it over. Sounds Echo released in that blissful receiving of his strength would begin the process all over again, when he’d pull her hair back and hold himself in, pressing his body as tightly against her as he could.
Alan had finally let it lose — at last. She’d known how bad that boy wanted up in her. He’d clearly felt some kind of shame about it. That was burning away really quickly now. Echo realized how betraying of himself that projection of insecurity had truly been, only moments back, as his tongue got so incredibly deep inside her, and she’d writhed with her hands massaging the hair on the sides of his head. She could feel in her chest how much he’d loved it.
Something about making love this way, without much use of that part in which her birth sex would be so known, let Echo feel into her femininity in ways which were holistic and affirming like nothing else. People would laugh when she’d mention herself a goddess, thinking there was some humorful, if assertive ego at play in her word choice. Nobody who’d seen her this way would question that for a second.
Eventually he’d flipped her over and had his chest to hers. Their eyes were locked, and her legs were wrapped around his hips. Kissing him there, with all that continued building of pleasure he’d been working up within her, feeling every part of them held together so closely — allowed a sense of ecstatic release which Echo had been seeking most singularly throughout her life — and the way her body shook upon him in its release was of most exceptional sensation, and had taken them both to a place quite like heaven.
Prickling heat was about her shoulders and back, unbelievable surges of contraction then release within her abdomen, and her womanhood was singing every time his belly pressed into it by his thrusts.
There was no control left as she’d lost herself to the convulsions in her body, the screaming of her voice, and that arching at her back; Echo had the most transcendent orgasm of her life.
Just after she’d finished shaking, she noticed the way Alan had worked himself up, which was most palpably apparent in his urgency to remove that toolset.
She’d slid underneath just as he removed it, latching on with every soft part of her mouth to his dripping clit. She got right under there and started changing that boy’s oil with all her muster, which had itself seemed most eager to evacuate the tank, changing form quite immediately upon expenditure into a most pleasurable shower. One in which Echo would need a real shower to clean off shortly thereafter.
There’d been a time where Alan was collapsed and Echo had just been giggling, some product of the continued bliss coursing through every part of her body’s energy. Her computers alert had sounded then, and there was a celebratory shout most certainly heard by Echo’s neighbors, even beyond the volume of all they’d just had their ears graced by.
There was just one conversation in which she hadn’t completely silenced alerts. It was a group chat with herself, Alan, Leopold, Poe, and Rory. Still, the only person she had it set to notify her of new messages from was Leo, and her heart knew it to be the one the one she was waiting for.
Everyone had agreed to take part in what Leopold and Echo had been making, although, it was only Poe who sort-of understood what she was getting into.
Alan could see Echo’s excitement, finally becoming less catatonic from that most epic release of pleasure which was built so incredibly high through his exploration of her body. He’d finally had enough brainpower returning to him, where he could process what that notification meant.
“It’s ready, isn’t it?” He’d asked Echo as she was bouncing across the room towards the washroom for a shower, his words carrying a most apparent tone of hesitance from what she’d told him about it.
“Yes, it is!” She’d shouted while passing through the doorway, only to reemerge with a falsest, fiery stare of challenge sent Alan’s way. Echo asked it then, straight-glaring at him, and most fully committed to the bit.
“Are you?”
Takin a quick break after this one, lol