Someone Like You

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Author's Note:

Though he retains his canonical pronouns, I cannot stress enough that I gave Ardbert a vagina. If you need him to be a guy to get off on this, just pretend his expertise in female masturbation comes secondhand.

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The surplus of Light in the First disrupts the summoning of shades, meaning Fray blinks into her peripheral vision and disappears when she turns. In her head there is no voice to hear but her own, which says only the foulest things, exhausting her with quiet yet constant battle while world ending matters require her attention.

Her allies give orders, solve puzzles, make sacrifices, return changed. She watches, from over her own shoulder, red sand swirling on the winds of Amh Araeng, where before her unfolds an affectionate scene in which she plays no part. When she cries they will assume 'tis naught but dust in the eye.

Ordinarily a hero's thoughts are pragmatic and present: which direction to point her boots, what message to deliver, where to pierce the enemy's defenses, how to save the world... the entire world and everyone in it. Twelve worlds, actually— or was it thirteen? By any count, very many. Too many for one hero, but other heroes are helping her. Friendly heroes, friends who don't dislike her, people who might understand her if they tried.

World ending matters require their attention. The Light. The night. Calamity. Doom. A power only she has, power that hurts to use, but she'll use it, she'll do it, she promises! How she longs to tell someone, anyone:

Pray point at what you would have me kill.

I will kill it.

And then I'll be good enough. Right?

Someone will be kind to me, won't they?

Every finger in the First juts at the Lightwarden, thus it perishes by her blade— a guillotine Fray taught her to wield. Night falls over Amh Araeng and with it comes a heaviness on her heart unlike any other. It hurts to breathe. Something drags her down from the inside, bids her sink into the sand, dead, buried, where she belongs.

The Scions notice her pain but miss her personal apocalypse because none of them are Fray.

Ordinarily the darkness draws her out. From just behind her comes a word of congratulations, then Fray's familiar shape, Fray's comforting touch. She feels a mother's pride for a battle well fought, and for now ignores the troublesome fact of whom her little dark knight fights for. The scolding can wait, second in import to the glittering stars; their grateful reunion; the respite Fray would force upon her even if no one else did.

But there is something nasty inside her. Not even her shadow wants her now.

Tonight, someone else sends her to bed. There is no offer to hold her, not even her hand, because the world knows naught of her nightmares. All they see is a busybody's vendetta against taking breaks, and they would have their weapon recharged by morning.

Fray would say something like that. She would choose words too cruel to speak aloud but, as it is, the girl has lost her voice. After the barest show of agreement, which in truth is all she can muster, she sulks off to her room. Her nice, quiet, private room full of yummy food and pretty things, where she should feel safe but won't. She stumbles through the door, ready to weep until sunrise. Already the tears blur her vision, where bright white creeps in from the edges until she is nearly blind, and her head hurts, leaving her so dizzy she falls while fumbling the buckles on her boots, but it's no better on the ground because the world is shaking all around her—

"Liborette?"

Ardbert.

"What's the matter? Are you all right?" He approaches, as if to help her stand, until he remembers himself.

It hurts. It hurts it hurts it hurts, the Light crackling in her ugly, shrunken soul, overfilled with pain until something dissolves and relief trickles in through a tiny crack, just wide enough to breathe. To blink at his hand hovering over hers.

Ardbert cannot hold her, but he can listen. Like Fray, he hears without her needing to speak aloud. Somehow the intent to communicate is enough, and in her wish to explain it all to him— her living shadow, her longing, all that the Light has wrought—

"Whoa, whoa, slow down. One thing at a time." He asks, "can you stand? Or, well... crawling works, too."

It suits her, dragging her worthless body on hands and knees into bed. However, the bed may be too good for her thence on the floor she shall remain.

"Don't be ridiculous."

The tone signals concern but registers as disapproval which zings into hatred so palpable she worries Ardbert will kill her. Such notions are not only ridiculous, they are impossible, they are offensive, yet the urge to apologise a dozen times stays buried under fear.

"You... This is not like you." Out of politeness, he keeps his distance. "Something has happened to you."

A convenient excuse. Wheresoever the winds of fate carry her, it is her that they carry, and wheresoever she goes, people die. People most precious to her, struck down in an instant— even Fray was dead from the start. Somehow they had twisted that to their fortune. To be a shade formed of two true selves, supping on what seemed like nigh endless aether, meant her mentor would live as long as she did. With you, to the ends of the end, they promised, together.

But Fray doesn't love her anymore, or Liborette has killed her with this damned Light; or both, or worse, and she can't tell, or she knows not how to decide because she is not the decisive one between them.

She never is. She is a hound circling the feet of a thousand masters. Hunt, fetch, kill, pray point where she must needs go; she can do it, she will do it, she promises, even if— especially if it hurts.

"... I remember that feeling," says Ardbert, "or something like it. I never meant to be a hero. I just wanted to help but, before I knew it, the fate of our star rested on my shoulders. Heavy, isn't it?" His eyes are soft, commiserative. "You've done well to carry all this."

The knot in her belly begins to uncoil.

"Is that all you wanted to hear...? That you did well?"

He is surprised it should be so simple, but what else can one expect from a girl who thinks herself an animal? Be thankful for those kind souls who came before, who already convinced her she was not an object.

"In that case..." Some leader-like quality overtakes him— or perhaps he, too, is a hound who just caught a scent— and he gives a decisive nod. "Get into bed and I'll praise you as much as you like."

She hoists herself up by the sheets to sit on the edge of the bed. With steadier hands her boots come right off, and she begins to pull back the covers before Ardbert stops her.

"Ah, wait, shouldn't you undress? Your clothes are filthy."

That they are. Red sand chafes at her in unspeakable places— such is the hazard of desert adventures. It takes more strength than expected to lift her arms, but she manages to unbutton her jacket and wiggle out of her shirt. Her camisole goes with it, baring her breasts, an accident she is too tired to correct. Ardbert politely looks away, but gapes when her spats come off, too.

"When I said undress, I didn't mean..."

Sand trickles to the floor when she scratches her bottom.

"Well, uh, well done." He is staring at the ceiling. "You can lie down now."

Crawling under the covers makes her modest enough for Ardbert's attention again. He smiles at her or at least tries to. When he sits on the floor beside the bed he must lean forward, into his knees, to spare himself the humiliation of phasing through the furniture.

"Thank you for getting into bed. Better here than the floor, no? You... Someone like you should take comfort wherever it comes."

Someone like her... Just what sort of person does he think she is?

"A good person. You're..." There is nothing quite like the expression of a friend searching for a compliment. "Would you forgive me if I can't explain it any other way? You're a good girl, Liborette."

Though he cannot possibly understand the significance of those words ere he utters them, the moment they reach her ears, something just south of her belly will flip over and he will feel it, too, for nothing about her can be hidden tonight. With embarrassment comes apology: she swears she merely enjoys the sound, never mind from whose lips it comes.

Yet Ardbert presses on as if naught occurred. "If you need someone to remind you... well, what else is there for me to do here? It's about time I made myself useful. Let me take care of you."

Alongside the rush of warmth comes the tingle of anxiety found only on the edges of cliffs, a combination so potent she squirms. Everyone she has ever loved made her feel this way, and every time the fear gave way to pleasure, but neither party in this conversation can lay claim to so much as a crush. How lonely she must be to blush this fiercely at a friend.

"To replace anyone you love is beyond me. I can't even touch you. But I can tell you the truth— tell you when you've done well, and..." To set aside both of their pain, to create a pocket of time where less and little is expected of her, his voice softens exactly as it must. "You've been so good for me tonight."

Words so lovely as these ache in her heart and wring out fresh tears. Ardbert shushes her as they patter onto the pillow.

"Come on, it's all right, just try to relax," he says— as if anyone could relax with this flush creeping over them!— but she is not one to disobey an order, especially not one given so soothingly, meaning that before she knows it she is taking a deep breath and being rewarded for it. "Yes, you can do it. Good girl."

The worst of the ache throbs between her legs. She rolls onto her side, scrunches into a ball, and hopes to ignore her shameful reaction as expertly as he does.

"Ignore? Uh... Hm." His disappointment is overtaken by a glimmer of his former self: a warrior rising to a challenge. "How much more forward must I be? If it's that kind of relief you need, I may as well provide. Words are all I have. How lucky that you're so affected by them."

It's not her fault, it's not on purpose, her face is burning, don't laugh—

"I'm not laughing, Liborette. I'm intrigued. Plenty of adventurers are in it for the praise, but not like this." What a liar he is, chuckling at her again. "It's impressive how easily pleased you are."

When next she shifts, the sound of her thighs sticking together shall alert him to her interest in being teased as well.

"Gods above, just how wet are you?"

Her one-handed inspection returns fingers faintly lustrous in the moonlight, held together, even when spread, by strings of arousal. The fluid runs clear in contrast to her hazy mind, getting hazier with each moment of mounting embarrassment, lust, and submission— three inseparable feelings for her, all of which have emerged in response to painfully simple words from the last person whom she expected to say them. Somehow their shared incredulity makes it all the more titillating, so when Ardbert watches her flex her fingers, essentially playing with the evidence of what he has done to her, the heady look in his eye inspires yet more quivering all throughout her body, but especially there, right there, where she needs someone to take care of her the most.

In short: very wet.

"How do you..." He runs a hand through his hair to give what remains of his body something to do. "How do you usually touch yourself?"

She doesn't; someone else does, for that is how her first love preferred it, and after him came her living shadow, whose body becomes real enough when she cries out for it. What Fray does to her— or did? No, no, she'll be back— is her memory nearest to masturbation but, by the look on Ardbert's face, she can tell it does not measure up to his definition at all.

"... you mean to tell me this is your very first time?"

The truth makes her feel quite small, too small to handle anything on her own, a useless lump in a bed too big for her.

"Relax. I'll help you. Obviously I'd prefer to do it myself— or you, you'd prefer it, but—" He covers his fluster with a self-pitying scowl at his useless hands. "All I can do is guide you through it."

Guidance she can do. Liborette lives to be guided and, so long as she reminds herself of this, she can give herself over to any soul in creation. That she should be blessed with a soul as magnanimous as his to carry her through this ordeal— the loneliness, the Light, the ignorance that makes her shake at the thought of— of actually attempting to—

"Shhh. I said relax." He sighs not in exasperation but as an example of a deep breath. "If you're too frightened, it will never work. So I need you to be a good girl for me. Can you do that? Come on, yes or no."

Equally pathetic and earnest, she nods, and what she lacks in confidence Ardbert supplies with his smile, all his amusement at her expense overwritten by a hero's natural patience and optimism. If nothing else she can trust him, and that sense of safety sets her at ease.

"What we're doing is not that difficult. Even kids can do it. Figured it out fairly young myself. Since then far, far too much time has passed, but the muscle memory remains. Huh. In this form it feels... different."

She slithers to the edge of the bed to peer down at him, but before she can see what he is doing between his legs, over his clothes, the same hand flies up to wave her away.

"No, it's not about me. I was only remembering how it goes."

And how does it go? What would he have her do?

"If I was as wet as you are now, I would slide a few fingers inside and be done in two minutes." The shot of anxiety in the air makes him quickly add, "though that seems rather advanced for you," then cross his arms and consider other options. "Hmm... When I first began..."

That wistful tone suggests a mentor combing the sands of time for childhood memories, which is humiliating in its own way. When a peerless warrior finds herself so far behind in such a basic skill, it stings sharper than expected, and for a moment her every rightful claim to inexperience (the trauma, the derailment, the amnesia, all of it) get swallowed up in shame, until Ardbert is shushing her again, coaxing her back into the sanctuary of thoughtlessness he crafts for her with every gentle word.

"Listen, Liborette. Can you lay on your side? Good... Squeeze your legs together. Arrange yourself until they pinch— aye, that's my sweet girl." He nods at her first soft sound of the night, the whimper that assures them both it is working. "Well done. Keep going."

She lies with her legs coiled around each other so tightly that, betwixt thighs already slick with sweat and cum, no matter how she shifts or squirms some pressure will prise her clitoris and shoot pleasure up her spine. Even when she tries to ease away from it, she still jolts with sudden ecstasy. How exhilarating it is! How alarming! In any other circumstance she would cling to her lover for support, but— but—

"Hold onto my voice. I'm here. I won't leave you."

Ardbert and her pillow are all she has, and for tonight that is enough— plenty once he begins to narrate and her mind melts into clay ready for moulding by capable hands.

"There's no 'correct' way to do it. You need only enjoy yourself. That's how you'll please me, understand? Show me how you feel and I'll reward you."

The bedsheets may cover her body, but anyone could see her writhing beneath them, observe the heavy flush in her face, or smell the musk of her arousal, and those paying close attention might notice the hitch in her breath when she is praised, how she claws at the covers as if clinging to the words themselves.

"Do you always squirm this much? No, don't stop! It's cute."

He laughs at the squeal of delight she muffles in the pillow.

"That must be another favourite of yours... In which case, I ought to tell you that this is the cutest I've ever seen you. Everyone can tell you're a good girl. They need only one glance. But do they know how good you are?"

When he looks into her eyes she feels naked— every onze of her desperation condensed in the tears on her lashes; a thousand words unspoken, wobbling on her lip, boiled beyond comprehension by the steam swirling in her head that wafts up from the smoulder in her belly, a fire that he is happily stoking, meaning that despite their pseudo-telepathy, all he hears are her little squeaks and gasps, and maybe something like good, more, yes, please— so she squeezes her eyes shut.

"Just look at you, trying so hard for your first orgasm on your own. You're being so good for me."

Inside her something is unravelling, her heart is pounding, with every buck of her hips new heat gushes from her vulva.

"Such a sweet sound. Whatever you did, do it again."

Was she talking? She didn't mean to talk. It just— she just—

"Ah— Ardbert..."

"Aw, good girl. It's all right." He says it to reassure himself mayhap more than her, for there is no mistaking the astonishment in his tone, nor the rising excitement. "Let me hear you."

Despite everything she feels cradled by him, as if his presence solidified while hers evaporated and they dissolved into each other, blurring the boundaries between her and his pleasure, affording her the safety to cry out for him, to babble under her breath, to surrender to anything and everything he may ask of her— which, of course, is naught more than be good, so good, a good girl for me.

"I... I meant what I said before." He collects himself enough to speak. "That if I could, I would do all this for you. Do it properly. As long as I had you in my arms, you'd worry for naught. You'd know you were good enough, know it down to your bones, because I'd keep telling you so. As many times as you needed to hear it."

Then tell me now, she thinks, but Ardbert knows what he's doing, so be quiet and listen, all right?

"And I'd make you come as many times as you needed. Put you to bed that way every night, if you'd let me. It drives me crazy, watching you waste away with no one looking after you. Let me fix that, Liborette."

There should be no oaths now, nothing so certain or sincere, but between the two of them someone yearns to speak these words and another to hear them. On the edge of orgasm, logic will forever give way to passion, to anything that tugs at the heart and mind and body, the body wound so tight, just a bit more—

"Let go. You've already done so well."

Of course he knew that the moment she relaxed it would come rumbling through her like an earthquake to seize her limbs and her mouth, to make her shiver and moan before it sets her down in damp sheets, wet and sore and twitching, with a strange yet comforting awareness that her soul is hers and not hers, because even though all is through, she still feels him there, his panting breath synchronous with her own. Ardbert withdraws the heel of his hand from his crotch and thinks aye, though she has need for a bath, she needs the sleep even more. So he watches, talks softly, says, "shush, it's all right," and waits until she is snoring softly to slip away into the world between worlds where no one, not even she, can see him.

. . .

The Crystarium's hero has picked up a peculiar habit.

What can the Exarch call it besides exactly what it is? Whether connected to the Light's poison, her deteriorating mental state, or something else entirely, it matters not. He monitors her for her safety, not to bear witness, night after night, to compulsive masturbation.

At first she remained beneath the bedsheets, but soon began to kick them off, mayhap from the heat. He can practically smell the sweat dripping down her back, all the way from the Ocular, as she contorts herself in all manner of provocative poses. On her back with her knees up to her ears. Face down with her behind in the air. Up against the window. Hanging halfway off of her bed. Leaning over the dining table, grinding on the corner of the dining table, tearing up the kitchen for... implements.

As an old, old soul, he is amazed by this girl's ability to make him blush. It's hard not to, hearing someone so meek suddenly shout with ecstasy, so lost in fantasy she calls the name of a long dead hero— or villain, depending on who tells the story. He wonders which version moves her to such passion and then, for his own sanity, prays he'll never know.

Tonight she is at it again, stuffing herself full with two fingers, whining into the pillow that no longer muffles the noise. Eventually a neighbour whose sleep she disrupted one time too many will file a complaint, but the Exarch decides, with a twitch of his tail beneath his robe, that such nonsense shall never trouble her.

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Author's Note:

First I wrote the SFW version of this story, and then, uh... It seems I got carried away, which is hilarious because I didn't even like Ardbert like this until the story was already over. Goddamn!