Ghost Carriage

Post-haste. Post-haste. Post-haste. The scrawl was dripping with palpable sarcasm but still the words circle about your head as you clutch the letter to your breast, deep under many layers of clothing and two whole cloaks. Post-haste. The outer coat is already soaked through with rain but the pair together are doing a good enough job of – if not keeping you completely dry – keeping you warm. The contents held within the missive are about the only things that could ever possibly inspire you to venture throughout the dark of night, through the pouring rain, puffing hot mist with each breath as your boots plunge through puddles of mud.

Indeed, it was a scathing and dismissive sarcasm. But there was nothing wrong in it. Rather, it is your current actions which are aberrant. Blessed, your bloodline is. Heroes and warriors, ordinarily yours wasn’t the kind to tread the dark ways at night like a common vagabond. But, by the gods were you fitter than most to do it. Some part of you regrets not waiting for the morn for a caravan, but you can get to the next town over faster on foot, and catch one from there.

You don’t know how exactly it was that your line fell to its current, fractured state. You never bothered to learn. Mayhap they were all beset by the same affliction that has dogged your heels and the heels of your kin since waking memory. A lazy wastrel of a scion, of a fallen house. Had pure circumstance seen your blood rise up? Or had a god’s curse seen it laid low? What did it matter.

In truth, yours was actually the main branch but no one cares anymore. You’re not even really counted among nobility, strictly speaking. In a twist of irony, it’s the lesser branches that have inherited the mantle, albeit a lesser mantle. Do you care? You certainly were never taught to, no noble pride nor hubris. Just living life, doing the bare minimum to survive. Your father and his father and you included, could barely muster more energy than was required to keep the roof over your heads; even then the third room on the top floor had a leak – has a leak, still.

You don’t know how they even had you to be honest. Perhaps there’s some unseen blessing at play opposing the curse, helping your line find miracle women, happy and content to simply not go too hungry or too cold, to not get too restless in stagnation. If there were anything laudable about your lineage as it now is, it’s a uniform aversion to drink and dice. High risk behaviour, you see. High reward? At the potential cost of losing what skerricks of comfort you’ve managed to pass down the generations? Having to actually work for a living? No thanks.

Then, what could inspire you to such lengths, drenched as you are? Well it just so happens that the branch family recently had a major issue. A ‘risk’ issue. With all their ‘successful’ ambitions, the scions all ended up accidentally eliminating each other, leaving the house without an heir. Sweet vindication. You have brothers of course, though you are the eldest. But leaving the current generation aside, since the time your line fell there’s been no record of such inner strife, no fratricide, not nearly a challenge.

In fact it’s quite the opposite. You’ve done a good job of dodging the responsibilities your pesky siblings have tied to offload onto you up until now. They grit their teeth in chagrin whenever they see you, for they are not so deft. Alas, not all families are so wise as yours. So in a desperate bid, a letter was delivered to you, advising you to come, post-haste, for if the heir of the ancestral branch was not deign to inherit the house, they’d soon start looking elsewhere. That process of adoption was in fact already in its fledgling stages.

The letter fairly reeked of lackadaisical informality. Rife with errors, they misspelled your name and it’s clear they’d sealed it up before remembering they’d forgotten to sign it at the bottom. They clearly never expected you to read it, let alone travel through the night to see it come to fruition. Not an unfair assumption to make, granted. But when it rolled off your desk and snagged a nail, cracking the already cracked wax again and the thing unrolled before your feet, well… You’re no mystic, but your line has fostered an intuition towards fate and when destiny comes knocking you’re confident in your ability to make the most of it while giving the least.

A ‘real’ noble family has appearances to keep; they cannot ignore old ties. So long as you get there first, the position is yours. But at the same time, they’re not going to relinquish the power and influence they’ve striven to attain, least of all giving it up to the defective ‘main’ line. You’ll be ‘wed’ to their daughter but an endless string of misfortunes will indefinitely prolong the ceremony.

The standing head will, meanwhile, be looking to spread his seed like an energetic old bull to foster any kind of heir that could possibly replace you. And replaced you will be; used like a puppet for the veneer of stability and tossed aside like a puppet, but a well kept puppet.

There is the kicker. They can’t just get rid of you. No, you’ll have to graciously step down and they can’t just return you to the street either. In return for your graciousness you’ll be granted a menial stipend and a worthless estate. You have vision. It is undeniable that try as little as they may, the glory of your line erodes bit by bit. In doing this you’ll have guaranteed a lease of another ten generations. And who’s to say that by the ninth, Lady Fate doesn’t stop by for another visit? As the heir of your line this is your duty. Your sacrifice, the cold night and the pouring rain. You have wet socks now, so that your descendants won’t have to. At least for a little while.

That’s the only thing carrying you through the night as the winds grow evermore frigid and lightning cracks overhead. Misty, windswept rain stings at your face like fine needles and fat drops assail your head from boughs above. Then, let this moment be the one solitary flare of effort in your life. The one moment the slothful must awaken if only to shamble to a fresher bed. The one moment your existence means something beyond existence.

Another crash of lightning illuminates the dark night sky and the rain intensifies for a moment, blistering winds whipping about your cloaks as your eyes blaze with the embers of a heroism long forgotten. You trudge ahead, sight well used to the dark, staying up too late and being too economic (too lazy) to light a candle is your forte. The mechanical pumping of your legs wears down upon you, your mind growing distant in the monotony of it. You’ve an academic knowledge of the ways and byways of this region, not through diligence but rote – A goliath map of the area is framed upon your favourite wall for idle-gazing.

You’ve a long, long way to go yet. So you day dream to pass the time, the complaints of your body now long used to being ignored, your mind wandering as your fleshly form carries on its solemn duty. It lingers mostly on how much you wish you weren’t doing this right now and were back at home in your bed, reading a book. You don’t let such complaints daunt your stride.

The path flows before you like liquid as you take it at a light, determined jog. Oscillating like a river, the road widens to the elements at parts, blowing and battering you about, then narrows at others, errant branches scratching and whipping at your body. If there’s any solace it’s that nothing will waylay you this night – nothing else would be stupid enough to brave this weather. It’s for the better, a rusted dirk is all you have and not much experience wielding it.

As such, mind drifting amidst banalities, you don’t notice the howling wind intensifying in violent gusts and peals of thunder. As if heralding ominous malevolence. It isn’t until the blistering rain abates for but a moment that, buffeted, your ears pick up on the distant but very there trundle of cartwheels in the far night. Your heart skips a beat and you pay no heed to the hows and whys of a cart braving this fitful weather. You intuit a chance to be lazy, thus you prostrate before it.

But before you have a chance to formulate your plan of inaction, before you even have a chance to turn around and spy this cart, some shadow descends upon you. No… that’s not quite right. A presence? In this dark and fitful night, what you thought was a humble cart turns out to be a rather lavish if old looking carriage. It seems to bear its own illumination, a pale glow that, somehow, at the same time casts a shadow out over the night. The whole carriage gives you a perplexing sensation of not really being there. Otherworldly. Rain still pelts its exterior, but for some unfathomable reason, it seems almost… dry.

Driven by a solitary horse clad in rags, even the beast doesn’t really seem all there. Halting beside you but paying you absolutely no heed, your head only comes up to its back. Similarly, the driver, protected from the weather via a generous canopy, doesn’t even look at you. She’s an absolute beauty though, the kind of heroic female adventurer every travelling merchant secretly wishes he’d get to accompany him rather than some seasoned, grizzled middle aged man.

Long, wild red hair is tied up behind her in the thinnest veneer of proper appearance, though thick and luscious strands the flame lick out here and there, framing a pair of gleaming emerald eyes. A tight leather, part-opened vest barely encases her vast assets and you imagine a proper, elegant undershirt was once requested to cover her scar-tattered, muscular arms and abs but as it is now, the small jerkin is the only article covering the barest of her athletic torso.

Tight leather pants constrain her large, powerful thighs and tuck under thick leather boots, the quality of the material and craftsmanship showing their worth even in this queer luminous glow. Resting beside her is a huge, sheathed greatsword, easily the height of a man, though she herself has a few heads on the average one.

Despite spending what feels like a solid few minutes ogling her form, she gives no recognition. In truth, if not for the fact that the carriage stopped right beside you, you’d have no indication they were even aware of you standing here in the wind and the rain at all. That is, until the door opens out, revealing a soft warm glow from within.

You stand half mired in the mud and stare at the opening a moment, a moment long enough for whoever opened it to get restless and pop their – her – head out of the carriage to look at you with an exquisite mix of amusement, confusion and exasperation. “Well?” You jolt. A curiously bemused tone. Long, flowing and wavy flaxen locks tipped with painfully cute ringlet curls blow in the wind, a bright and innocent pair of pale blue eyes glimmering at you, set upon a face of regal beauty.

‘So what are you waiting for?’ She doesn’t say it, but her meaning comes across to you as loud and clear as the blistering wind battering you and spitting frigid rain all down your collar. She places a hand on her own head, keeping her tidy hair in place in the face of these winds, her patience apparently dwindling. Unease niggles at the roots of your mind. It isn’t necessarily fear staying your footsteps, but… apprehension? The suddenness? The peculiar aura given off by the carriage? Some ancient aspect stirs in your blood, forewarning you of peril. Your blood has a formidable instinct, after all.

Soon, however, your other innate nature kicks into gear and you gleefully mount the step into the carriage before you have time to wonder where that sensible caution went. Behind peril is opportunity and you’ve already long since departed from your traditional indolence and risk-aversion, the deep muddy imprints upon the beaten track testament to this. You feel ridiculous, but on the other hand there is no saying that your journey ought to always be cold and uncomfortable. Only what is necessary, is necessary. All that matters is the job is done, vague niggling on the nature of the carriage aside.

“T-Thank you very much my lady!” Fumbling in excitement and deeply appreciative of the chance to sit down, relax and let that goliath of a horse haul you to where you need to go, you plonk down onto the seat opposite her, feeling as heavy and waterlogged as you sound. Only the squelch helps you remember – suddenly, embarrassed at your inconsideration – that you had briefly forgotten the state of yourself.

An ashamed heat rises to your cheeks. With a glance back to the floor of luscious dark woods and exquisite maroon rugs, you expect with no small guilt and regret to see them sullied by mud and soaked in rain. Far fallen though your lineage is, you still held common courtesy. Yet curiously, you see not even a drop of water. Yet more worryingly than that, you see that the door which you had just entered, is no longer there.

Just another window, mirroring the other side of the carriage, baring scarce all through rain and fog laden dark.

Your eyes narrow and your spine stiffens as your brain starts to whirr. The dirk by your hip suddenly feels unbearably feeble and unreliable. You nervously direct part of your attention to the woman before you, while the rest is devoted towards finding a way out of here. A free ride is good and well. Vanishing doors are less welcome. A ride is only as good as its destination. She studies you with a mysterious glimmer in her turquoise eyes, her lingering silence growing more uncomfortable as she leaves your words of gratitude upon the gallows.

Her skin is pale with a blueish tinge and her long, braided, pale flaxen hair shares a similar aspect. Her dress, a dark red thing with thinner, see-through fabric artfully not quite revealing her immense bosom, marks her out as the highest of nobility. Forget your chance, blundered inheritance, the dress alone is likely worth more than all the branch family’s assets combined. The only problem is, it’s the kind of dress your grandmother wore.

Now, the nostalgia isn’t the issue, nor is seeing remnants of your grandmother upon such a stunningly beautiful young lady. The issue is that your grandmother, gentle and understanding of the man and family she was marrying into, didn’t particularly care that hers was a dress which had been passed down for generations, much like your own clothes. From the heydays of your kin. Before your line was beset with this curse. In eras… long past. It was more than a dress to her. It was an heirloom. A trust that she would care for and look after and pass it down to the next. Your grandfather was a lucky bastard.

But it is a dress that no other living noblewoman would be caught dead in. Or possibly even could be. It is a dress that should never have appeared, asides from your dear anachronous grandmother. It is a dress that is not of this world, anymore. If not to some ancient collection, then surely it belonged now only to those who once wore it, as grave-goods perhaps. Aeons ago.

An icy dread fills your heart and your legs grow leaden as the possibilities fester in your mind, a cadaverous rot clawing to the surface. There are only two possibilities here, both equally as likely, or unlikely. Either this dress, this carriage – even that damn horse – either they were wrong. Or, you were. Perhaps… you had in fact… already entered the realm of the dead? Had you unexpectedly perished along the roadside, is this beauty donned in seductive crimson history before you the archaic shepherd to carry you to the halls of your ancestors? Had you just… witlessly waded into Death’s tributary?

“A-ahn~!” With a startlingly erotic gasp, the lady across from you closes her gleaming eyes in a blissful shudder, hips squirming, eyelashes fluttering, pale pink lips parting with salacious invitation. “Ahhh~ Mmmh~ Gods yes. Now that. That is a… rich fear.” Her tone dips at the tail of her exaltation to a carnal groan and the sudden hitch in her breath has the sheer material stretching over her cleavage shimmer alluringly as her breasts heave. The carriage seems to shudder around you, jolting along the road in sympathy.

A moment later her eyes flare open, studying you obsessively as they glow an ethereal red before fading back to their shimmery, icy blue. She shoots you a disgustingly smug and sweet smile while idly toying with a pale blonde ringlet. “And yet you are so well mannered as to let me enjoy it to its fullest in blessed silence. Thank you very, very much my dear sir.” She shifts in her seat to a more comfortable position, her every movement graceful and alluring.

“Usually, fear of this calibre – fear of death – is accompanied via shrieking and clamouring and all sorts of frantic nonsense. You must understand; for my kind, who adore men and love above all else, fear is already… sharp to the palate and an acquired taste, but when it is accompanied by all that noise and fret it’s downright unpleasant. Not yours though.” She shuts her eyes again as if to savour it, a soft tongue parting her plump lips as she licks them in appreciation.

“It’s subdued and… thick. Almost… creamy. My, I’m already getting ideas.” She turns her attention back to you and as she does so you can’t help but feel the whole carriage close in slightly. There’s an avid… fascination in her gaze. As though you were the oddity. The sudden change in pace throughout all this is almost enough to make you forget your fear. But, perhaps that’s the soothing and hypnotic quality to her voice. “But there’s a texture to your fear I haven’t tasted in quite a while, not since you humans began your cursed nattering. It’s the texture of ignorance. You… don’t know me, do you? Ah, but I am glad. For it has allowed me to taste something so delicious, a flavour which I’ve not tasted in so long. Too long.”

The world seems to go quiet as if to await your answer and in between dull aching fear and the faltering floundering of your heart, you manage to squeeze words out in a shockingly steady voice. “N-no my lady. I’m afraid that I do not know you.”

“Fufufu~” She lounges back in her seat, kicking a leg up and propping her elbow on an armrest. “Are you not from here? No, even then I daresay that even the casual passerby is warned of me. You are a superstitious lot. No one told you not to brave the roads at night?” Well, there were no carriages. You just figured your coin wasn’t worth getting out of bed at this hour.

You blink, taken aback before a small, residual shame sets in. You held pride in your family’s way of life but that didn’t mean you weren’t aware that your family didn’t quite fit in to wider society. “I-I haven’t spoken to anyone outside of my family in years, my lady.”

Her brows – artful, delicate things – shoot up. “Oooh? Now that is interesting. You don’t get out much?”

Why does it suddenly feel like she’s interviewing you? You shake your head, though it is mostly in baffled confusion. “Not if I can help it.”

“Hmmm~” She hums sweetly, losing focus on you for a moment as she seems to make a mental note. It soon returns. “And what exactly were you doing, dashing so madly through the night?”

“I’d received a message. It’s a long story, but suffice it to say I was compelled onto this path.” A brief wondering flickers through your mind. How is it that you’re suddenly spilling everything to this woman? Surely it’s not just because of her half-wrapped bosom. Where did your fear go? Into that bosom earlier, perhaps.

She beckons a finger and by some compulsion you’re reaching deep under your clothes and into your breast before handing the offending letter over. Her slender fingers stroke the outside of it before opening it, “Warm~…” With the quiet mutter, she reads the letter, occasionally looking up at you before resuming.

The ordeal isn’t long, the letter was only short. “I think I get it… what I don’t get is the why, but… before then I suppose I ought to explain a little of your situation now, though I am loathe to lose that unique texture again. Ignorance is painfully ephemeral and though you may still throb with fear for me, it’ll never taste the same once you’ve thrust past the veil of the unknown for the first time.”

She stands, her full height a little more than a head over you, enough that standing eye-to-eye would be more like standing eye-to-chest. Between this fine lady and her bodyguard, wherever they come from, they must breed them differently. Somehow the roof of the carriage accommodates her. “I am Lady Ardrienna of Nurencroft, no doubt a name now long since lost to history.” She shoots you a wink, curtsying with ancient flair before returning to her seat.

You gape a moment before you realise she’s paying respects to your own noble lineage. You go to rise and respond in turn when she waves a hand. “No need. My life and the lives of those closest to me aren’t all I lost along these roads. There’s even less need for formalities now than before. Clearly our meeting here is fate: had you spoken to any one at all they could have warned you not to pay heed to sudden carriages out of the night. You see, though it is a tad embarrassing for the spiritess in question to be offering her tale, it is said that none who take my invitation are ever seen again. At least, not among the living.” She smirks cutely.

It is indeed a bit queer to be given an introduction to your apparent demise by the culprit. At least as you continue to talk to her, she doesn’t seem too scary beyond her innate nature. Though her timely remark reminds you of your failed quest. Well shit. There goes the whole ‘save the family’ plan. You sink a little in your seat, dipping into defeat.

“You see, having died on my way to being betrothed, a deep regret leaves me lingering here, regret for never consummating with a beloved.”

You tilt your head at the phrasing, paying attention once more. “A beloved?” Not ‘her’ beloved?

She shrugs, “Well my betrothed by all accounts was a lovely man, but we’ve never met so he’s hardly ‘my’ beloved. Moreover, it’s not so much him that’s kept me here, as it is the whole ideal,” She waves a hand. “But we’re getting off track. I’ve captured many a man, but to this day none have satisfied me.” She freezes a moment before blushing, slightly flustered.

“My phrasing was poor, but you should take that literally; they all went to other women. I haven’t…yet…” She pauses a moment, gauging your reaction. Seeing nothing but the mild confusion you’re sure is no doubt being expressed at the moment, she clears her throat and carries on.

“Ahem – Anyway, you can’t exactly just catch and release boys once you have one. Wouldn’t feel right. They’re so precious. My first was an odd fellow in some ways similar to you. He kept me company for a while before I eventually met a lovely vampire to offload him onto. And then what happened once, happened twice. And a third time.”

Seeming to sink further into her chair she lets out a long sigh. “So in the end I found a new calling. Stealing boys and matching them with their ideal partners. The majority of my clientele are undead like me and let me tell you, they pay top crown for my services. Of course, the irony is that I myself have been a little unlucky in love this entire time.” She looks at you, hesitating a moment before shaking her head slightly and continuing on. “Which brings me to you, darling. So relax, let us chat a while. I already have some ideas for who might be your match but of course they’re nothing without a little input from your behalf.”

“Sorry…” You shake your head in confusion. “You’re here to… play matchmaker? With me? I don’t particularly want a spouse just yet. You can’t just… let me go?” A faint tinge of hopeful pleading colours the request.

She shakes her head. “Sorry darling. This carriage and I, we’re steeped in fate. It is as you had so deliciously feared. You are already dead. Or, as good as dead, anyway. There’s only two paths left to you now: either I let you go and you pass on to wherever your soul ends up, or I pass you on, to who you belong with. And you stay by their side.” You suspected as much, you just didn’t want to admit it. She herself seems somewhat regretful to inform you.

You go quiet at that. Is she always so candid? Does fear usually ease the process, make one simply glad he isn’t being flayed and eaten alive? Or is she often met with extreme indignation? Why them? Why did she have to pick them up? Do these meetings oft turn violent? What’s a ghast like her look like when she’s pissed? Even cuter? This barrage of inane questions let the realisation that you’re most likely never returning to the life you know slip under to be processed subconsciously, as much as it can be.

You’re brought back to her proposition. “Can you give me time to think?”

She grins. “All the time in the world.” In rather un-ghostly fashion, she rummages around a drawer which she pulls out from a compartment under her seat, fetching a large tome. She hands it over. “Here. You can read – I presume – but if not, then the book is enchanted to be understood anyway. It’s an introduction to the various types of undead, fae, spirits, demons and beastwomen. Now, mind you; every person is, well, a person. An individual, with their own quirks and aspirations. All this book does is give you a general idea of what kind of life you might be in for.” She shrugs.

“Some things are constant, carved into ones very nature. Vampires are haughty and thirsty. Wisps, jealous. Cheshires, arrogant and smug. Elves, a mix of all three. Some vary to what degrees and how they deal with it, but usually a certain aspect is a fundamental part of their existence. It’s hard not to be smug when you can just teleport away from the consequences of your actions. Take a look and see what strikes your fancy.” She hands the book over, the cover cold and clammy to the touch. Ardrienna seems content to watch you in silence and for some reason you don’t especially find it creepy or unnerving. More… tranquil.

The rain falls upon the glass carriage windows in steady streams and a small candle burns upon a table that extends off the carriage wall between the two of you, offering light enough though the deathly pallor of the glow makes it hard to forget your circumstances. In this strangely soothing and timeless atmosphere you begin to flick through the pages. Greeted first by the living image of a representative of the type of monster girl the entry is about, a brief description as to their racial proclivities and realities follows. Then, a longer section of… testimonials.

Lewd and descriptive as it is, it’s honestly more surreal than anything and you quickly find yourself drawn in to each article, each written to stir the imagination and make you consider. There’s a kind of magic in the way it is written, as though any one of these girls could leap out of the page at any moment, should you choose it. Each one, just waiting there for you personally. You chuckle wryly. It’s a somewhat self-serving attitude but, well, whatever. ‘Making it happen’ is the job of the matchmaker across from you.

The research and understanding behind the book is nothing short of astounding. Especially once you get beyond the basic penis in vagina stuff, there are even footnotes postulating on the histories and hidden links between species, it’s like a who’s who of old wives-tale boogeymen only in such depth and detail that surely whoever wrote it must be burning for some heresy or another by now if not locked away in some tower to be studied. If this weren’t a ghost carriage of death, you’d feel nervous even just holding the thing. But, you don’t think the auspices of the various Orders extend even into death. You hope.

Between the droning trundle, the falling rain and the gentle rocking side to side as the carriage traverses these ancient roadways, you actually find yourself becoming drowsy. Your mind wanders as you turn the pages, running through fantasies in your head of life with each girl, flipping each page without even realising as you intuitively filter through the ones that don’t suit you. A few glow every now and then, which Ardrienna takes note of. Those are few and far between though.

On the other hand, your knowledge about the various species of monster is growing – more so than what any old wives tale could give. Time in the carriage seems largely absent. You only notice it passing in the gradual waning of your wakefulness, suddenly brought back as the carriage rolls to a gentle stop, veering off the road towards a lookout by a hill overlooking the sea. Wait a moment, the sea? You stare out the window in confusion. Where exactly have you come to?

A ghostly white hand reaches forth, gently closing the book you’re holding. “Come, it is time for a break. This sort of book will wear through your mind in no time, not to mention what traversing the spirit realms does to inexperienced souls like yours. Join me for a picnic. I have sweets and fine teas here, the kind that relax and rejuvenate the mind. I’ll have Elaphi set the grounds so in the meantime dear, why not take a walk with me? Stretch your legs and let your mind digest.” She lays her hand upon your wrist before you respond and pulls you up out of your seat. You blink and you’re outside the carriage.

Hair buffeted by the night wind, you gasp in awe at the twin moons before you, one bright and luminous, the other wavering and shaky, vast as it spreads over the waves in the distance. You can taste the refreshing salt on the air. The view captivates you for a long moment, the first time you’d left home far enough to see the ocean, until movement from behind draws you from your reverie. You look to see the large redhead – Elaphi, she was called – busying herself with a small campsite beside the carriage.

In the meantime, Ardrienna takes you on a light stroll through the hills and meadows. Her spectral form isn’t so frightening under this moonlight. She almost looks more like a fairy. You rub your wrist where she held you, the cocytal touch lingering but not in an unpleasant way. It’s freezing cold without the ache or discomfort. It’s kind of… addictive.

“So… it seems a few may have caught your eye already?” She asks, her tone half genuine, half a teasing mischief. She saunters beside you with her hands clasped behind her back, leaning forward slightly to get a glimpse of your face. You catch a glimpse of hers in doing so, strands of her perfect locks flowing in the wind as the night breeze kicks up, soft glow of the moon radiating off her cheeks and reflected in her eyes.

You shake your head. “I don’t really know yet…”

“Oho? But it does seem you have a type, from what I saw. Phantoms, djinns, wisps…” She begins counting them on her fingers, wiggling them as she smirks knowingly, the both of you well aware of where this reclusive taste comes from.

You blush, rubbing at your neck.“W-well, I must admit… the notion of being looked after and staying within a personal, private space of her own making does appeal to me, personally.”

Her lips twitch as an eyebrow lifts. “Ohh? Greedy boy, it’s not enough she offers her heart to you, she has to be able to offer you a roof too?”

You blush. “I-I’m not that materialistic, honest. It’s not so much about the roof as it is… well, the way of life. I-I like the idea of a woman who’ll support my way of life. N-not just support but… embody, enhance it, I guess?” You clap a fist into your palm, recalling one of the entries you’d read.

“L-like It’s like that one I saw, right, that mimic, Creeping Coin. It’s not about the money, it’s about the lifestyle. The money’s all fake, anyway. I-it’s not a must, or anything. N-nor do I want anything high profile or luxurious. But… I-I think it’s good to want something that’s in line with your nature. Isn’t it?” You fidget, feeling somewhere within you that she’s riling you up on purpose, but you can’t help it. It’s like being accused of gluttony for wanting food on your table. Or lust for companionship. The only sin is excess, and you’re not an excessive man.

“Fufufu, enough, enough. I’m sorry.” She shakes her head in wry apology. “It’s not wrong to feel like that at all. It’s not even wrong to want to be pampered. Of course, relationships are all about give and take. If you want to be kept, what can you offer her?” You sense a now-familiar glint of mischief in her gaze.

You tilt your head. “Aren’t I enough?”

She drifts to a halt, surprised. “Hoh?”

You come to a stop with her, thinking on how you’d seen things work in your own family. “Obviously I don’t mean it in any kind of entitled sense. It’s just that, I don’t really have any perspective on relationships other than what I’ve seen from my own parents and grandparents. They really don’t seem to have much to offer to each other, other than each other. I… do intent to give all of myself. After all, it’s all I have and it’s all that I am. I don’t really have any other potential or ambition.”

You look down at yourself, opening and closing your fists. “I guess the best I can offer is stability… rather, it’s the best I would have been able to offer. I guess in failing this quest of mine, now I can’t even offer that much. So if we’re talking about what we can bring to the table, then I myself am all that I have. Is that not enough, Lady Ardrienna?”

She stands in silence for a long while, the moonlight shimmering off her form as she appears lost in thought. “… It is enough.” She shakes her head. “No, it is more than enough. I’m sorry, that was a stupid line of questioning to begin with. True love isn’t about what else you can offer, nor is it about how much of it you can offer. What’s strength to a dragon? Smarts to a lich or magic to a demon? There’s only one thing they lack and there’s little value in a man who can’t give them his true self, of course, some girls like the challenge of unearthing that true self. In that respect, wanting what’s true to your nature is the most precious thing about you.” She gives off a low, frustrated sigh. “You’re making this hard for me.”

“Oh, sorry? H-how do you mean?”

She turns away from you, though you think you caught the slightest glimpse of red on her pale cheeks. “It’s nothing. Lets head back, Elaphi will have prepared everything by now. Aren’t you hungry? Fufufu, food is good for the soul, after all.” She pauses momentarily, giving off an ominous air. “Oh, and don’t you worry about eating the food of the dead or what not. After all, you’re already never returning.”

“…” You draw your lips to a thin line, unsure what to make of her teasing just yet. It rubs against the tender ‘I just died’ wound, but it feels as though she’s brought you closer to the table of acceptance than you were a while ago, if – albeit – reluctantly.

The two of you head back towards the carriage. To your surprise, it doesn’t take long at all. You kind of thought you’d walked a bit farther than that, but perhaps you’d ambled about a more winding path. Or perhaps it’s the surreal atmosphere, twisting time and space. Two chairs and a table have been laid out over the grass under the moon-shade of a large oak. The big redhead is currently busy boiling the kettle over a low fire. A platter has already been placed upon the table, full of strange and exotic looking cakes. Ardrienna wastes no time in taking a seat in a graceful flourish and gestures to yours. You sit in the chair, a little awed at your own ability to relax in this situation as the blonde beauty across from you studies your every expression with her gleaming ice-blue gaze. Your eyes drift momentarily to the huge pair of breasts barely constrained within her noble attire. Surely that’s not all it takes.

Still, you suppose there is a small level of eeriness in the way she stares at you. You clear your throat, to break her attention off your face. “What about you?”

“Hm?” She tilts her head cutely.

“You said you’re still searching for your own man. What kind of man are you interested in? Hah, I’ll bet it’s nothing like a guy like me, is it?” No sooner do you get the question out before there’s a crash off to the side. Blushing, Elaphi scratches her head as she looks down at the toppled kettle, before turning to you in apology.

“S-sorry…. I’ll fetch more water.” You blink. She’d kept a stone face this whole while, you’d wondered if she weren’t just some kind of spiritual puppet for the far more animated Ardrienna. But it seems there is some semblance of ego in there.

“And just what is so wrong with a guy like you?” Her tone remains even and steady, not raising her voice but if you had to peg it between a statement and a declaration, you’d lean to the latter given the forcefulness of it. A moment passes before she registers her lapse in decorum, the ghost-princess clearing her throat hastily, her own cheeks flushing red as she tries to get a hold of herself.

“Uh, sorry. It was mostly a joke.”

“N-No.” She hastily waves her hands. “I’ve been unsightly, I apologise. Though I would prefer if you didn’t put yourself down like that.” She falls silent a moment, head dropping, errant strands of flowing wight-gold veiling her expression. “A m-man that I like, is it?… Well, I would say that he should be roughly… Hmm…” She takes a deep breath, then slowly lifts her head to look at you, readjusting in her seat as Elaphi approaches the table and begins to pour out the contents of the kettle into the teacups laid before you.

Her eyes bore into you with a profound air. “A man who knows himself is nice. One who doesn’t want for much – but knows exactly what he wants. A contrary man, who finds it in his nature to go against his nature when the time calls for it. A man with little, who’ll offer everything.” With a long exhale to calm her nerves, she leans back in her chair, ringlet curls rustling as she slowly reaches for her cup, graceful fingers curling about the slender handle as she raises it to her soft lips. The delicate and fragrant herbal aroma mixes with her own otherworldly perfume, creating an atmosphere of tender sophistication. “I suppose I could come to like that sort of man.”

You tilt your head, thinking back on what you’ve already told her about yourself. Aren’t these remarks a little too pointed towards your own current circumstances? “Aren’t you just… describing me, after all? Are you teasing me?”

Her lips twitch and almost too veiled to see, a madness swirls in her eyes. “Oh-hoh~ Then I’ve been found out. My, my~” She suddenly leans forward towards you. You don’t know if it’s just your imagination or the wobbling of her enormous tits, but there seems to be an almost frenetic breathlessness to her.“Then, my dear? How do you find my proposition?”

You squirm in your seat, off put by the sudden forwardness, both literal and metaphorical. You fight to keep your eyes on hers and not the two orbs below. “Do you actually mean it?”

She titters. “It wouldn’t do to doubt the intentions of a monstrous maiden when she confesses to you. I am deathly serious… Very, very much so.” You nod to her soft rebuke, she does seem… intimidatingly sincere about this.

You take in a deep breath then let it puff out as a sigh. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t happy, or flattered but to be perfectly honest with you, I find it a little sudden for the most part.”

She nods in calm understanding, her ghostly white knuckles going even whiter. “Yes, I don’t doubt that you would… these things take time after all.” Her words are barely uttered, strangled somewhere between a whisper and a whimper. Her poise rings hollow, belied in the subtle wavering of her voice.

“A-and…” You wince, not wanting to offend her but there’s no other way around it. Much as it pains you to reject her advances, your lingering purpose tugs against you. “Well, I do still harbour regret.” You peek a futile glance at her hidden expression, hoping against hope there was the slightest modicum of indication you’d be allowed on your way yet. To your objective, that is; not the afterlife.

Again, she nods in perfect sympathy, plump kissable pale pink lip spilling out luxuriously around a porcelain white tooth as she bites down to contain herself. Unease trickles up your spine, you don’t know if she’s about to cry or laugh but your instinct warns she’s emitting a wild instability. “Of course of course, time is also needed for that…” This time her words are more steady, perfunctory, even.

A tense moment passes in tentative silence as her body language begins to spark some more alarm in the hind of your most primitive brain. There is danger abound, but not the kind to trigger fight or flight. Rather than being taken for a meal, it’s like the lioness across from you is eyeing you up for a different kind of ‘eating’. Your seat grows very hot as her gaze sears over you. Then, she releases the tension she’d held in a soft, too-quiet breath that peals in your ears like a clarion crash heralding the storm.

She makes a sharp gesture at you with her hand and before you can react, two powerful arms wrap under yours like slabs of ice and you’re hauled up off your feet, a strong sweep of a leg sending the chair you were sitting on flying out from under you. A crimson lock of hair is dislodged in the sudden movement, it and the large, muscular frame you’re now suspended from tells you Elaphi is responsible. No, she’s only following Ardrienna’s command.

Your head quite naturally nestles in the cleavage of her bosom as she hefts you up, your legs shy of touching the ground. You gulp. You don’t exactly know why you feel the need to apologise this instant, but some part of you tells you that it’s vitally important you at least try. “Uh… Sorry?” Ardrienna only leers at you as she begins to climb over the table set before you.

“Sorry won’t change what’s about to happen~” She casually knocks aside the cakes laid out over the table as she stalks over it on all fours with catlike grace. A part of you looks to the wasted confectionery with regret, the other parts of you desperately try to look anywhere else other than the deep valley of breasts bared before you as the cut of her dress – already rather liberal – hangs low enough to lets you see almost completely down her top to her pale, soft belly. Of course, her enormous, pendulous mounds largely obscure that view.

Her hips sway from side to side as she crawls, staring intently at you, radiating a wild sensuality. She slips her legs off the edge of the table and slides down onto her knees before you, cake and cream-stained dress fluttering about. Her hands reach up to your thighs, making you jolt and struggle, but Elaphi has you in her cold iron grip and you’re not about to start kicking. Yet.

“W-what are you doing?!” Your demand for explanation is only answered in the chilling breath of the woman behind you and the searching fingers of the one below. You breathe a sigh of strained relief as she pauses with her fingertips upon the buckle of your belt, though the way she swirls her fingertip upon the rim of it evokes strange feelings within you.

Ardrienna tilts her head, an almost cute gesture were it not for the scorching lust flickering within the depths of her spectral eyes. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“O-o-of course it is! But I’d just told you how I’d felt on the matter! Did you not think that this would be even more sudden?!”

“Well, you see dear… I’ve come to a decision.”

“What?”

“Well, I am a woman.” She gestures to herself, waving a hand over her breasts self evidently. “And I’ve been playing at matchmaker for centuries. My intuition into these things is keener than most and right now darling, every inch of it is screaming for you to pound me raw. To be honest, it was from the moment I picked you up.” Her scorching gaze lavishes up and down your body as she momentarily lapses into a deep yearning. “I was trying to contain myself, but you just had to go and stir the pot. You can’t expose a lady like that, she’s liable to act irrational.”

“But even if that is the case. And thank you, by the way, you still can’t just ignore what I want. It should be common sense that you can’t begin a healthy relationship by forcing the other party into it.”

“Of course I know that.” You inwardly breathe a sigh of relief. She’s come to her senses. “That’s why I’m going to make you want to be forced into it. Or at least, make you admit you want this just as much as I do.” She directs a pointed glance to the hardening bulge in your pants. Which is a perfectly healthy and normal response to this situation, mind and in no way indicative of consent.

You gape at her as she begins to blush fiercely, but still meets your eyes with her own determined gaze as she begins to fiddle with your belt. “Quit quibbling and accept it. I’m already your woman. Now all that’s left is for me to… demonstrate it.”

There’s so much to refute and so many questions but you ultimately hold your tongue and give in to her insistence. There’s a time and a place for determination and dignity and it’s not when the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen is on her knees before you about to suck your dick. If your will didn’t fail you here, were you really even a man? At that point you’d be little more than a machine of purpose. If you really didn’t want it, you have no doubt your ancestral forbearance would carry you through this. Alas, it shows absolutely no intention of intervening and has in fact made itself comfortable, secured a clear view and brought snacks.

The cool night wind cuts through to your core, biting deeper yet as she exposes more of you, leaning in in rapturous fixation as she slowly reveals inch after growing, thickening inch. Your tip strains painfully against the coarse hem of your trousers before she frees you entirely, swollen head popping up strong and sudden enough to catch her unawares; she jolts then fairly melts at the touch as your glans brushes over her cheek to rest upon her nose, leaving a clear streak across that glistens in the moonlight.

She moans, low and yearning as she parts her lips, icy breath lancing through to the core of your manhood, but stirring defiant heat rather than languorous cold. Cool ghostly fingertips cradle and massage your sack tenderly, the same illogical licks of ghost-touch coaxing their burning vigour and virility in a way that has your loins clench and your heart strain up in your throat. You let out a strangled groan despite yourself, the spectre soliciting your life essence to sup.

Elaphi’s powerful arms keep you held aloft like a doll or puppet; they radiate cold like slabs of ice but Ardrienna’s presence below feels like the eye of a blizzard. You’re spared her frigidity in a way that the world around you is not, the freezing expanse in the near distance imprisoning this moment in space and time. There’s a lonesome quality to the meadows around you, you could scream for help but you’re dead certain there are no other souls around. This spectre has made her decision and you’re entirely at her mercy – have been ever since you took her hand. This is just the natural conclusion, then. So why say anything more at all? You couldn’t count on her mercy before and now that this lioness of a princess has your manhood in her sight there’ll be no quarter until she’s sucked you dry.

Before that, she stares at it for a long while, an overwhelming lust emanating from her so strong that she almost seems paralysed by it. Eventually, she speaks to you, cross-eyed as she fixates upon the throbbing length resting on her face, barely able to contain her salivating desire. “I suppose I should… help the mood…” Miraculously, she musters the willpower to break away from the thrall of your cock, leaning back on her heels and leaving you throbbing, lonesome in the night air.

You suck in a sharp breath as she slowly reaches up to the hem of her own dress, inexorably drawing the cloth down the bountiful crest of her bosom, the pressure mounting as more and more soft, perky breast is constrained by less and less fabric. She relishes in your reaction, nearly as transfixed to her as she is to you, she delights in your quiet murr of frustrated impatience as she stops half way, pale pink peeking as she squishes her barely contained breasts together, fabric of her dress straining such that it may just take the tease out of her itself.

The pale coronae of her areola herald the stiff, excited peaks. Where-after mounting them, her breasts bounce free with alluring abandon and a painfully adorable gasp. It’s so basic, so banal an enticement that you feel almost ashamed at becoming more aroused at her display. She snickers at the thick bead of pre shot out to drool down your length. “At least your body is honest.”

“Hmph.” You snort your indignity as you stare at her breasts, wondrous shapely things; well able to hold their own bouncy form but still proffered by the bunched fabric beneath. You’d like to look away, not play so easily into her seductions but so girt either side by Elaphi’s own breasts, the effort would seem moot. So you stare at them. To meet her challenge is now the least you could do.

The smug smirk she gives as she leans in to embrace your manhood in her bosom surprisingly isn’t incorrigible at all. It radiates such extreme gratification that you can’t help but have your heartstrings tugged a little. The gentleness with which she secrets your cock between her breasts is almost maternal and the sight of her expression arouses a bittersweet taste. How long has she endured? How torturous was her existence, offering others what she so excruciatingly sought? Ambitions be damned, ancestors forgive you, some how indulging this woman in all her pent up desires has unwittingly become your chief priority.

Stirred by this feeling, you can’t help but adjust your hips a bit, moving so imperceptibly that it can’t even be called a thrust, as you throb and ache between her breasts. The two girls chuckle, your movement seeming to break Ardrienna out of her spell. She looks up at you with a pure smile, her rimy blue eyes gleaming as she affectionately squeezes her tits together around your cock. “Fufufu, see? Now you’re getting into it. You almost want this as much as I do. Almost.” Her smile is charming, disarming and bright, a contrast so strong against the hands pressing her breasts together that it’s irresistible. “It’ll be tastier if we’re both enjoying it.”

You whimper out a groan, assailed by the pleasure wrought upon you as you struggle to form the people sounds. “W-what will?”

“Your essence, of course. It’s something that’s altered greatly by your emotions, which – right now – are nothing shy of ambrosial.” She pauses, shuddering, whispering. “I almost feel like I could die without it.”

She looks up at you, leering. “Again. Anyway, just think of it like me taking my pound of cock in return for all your teasing. I even highlighted those sections and you still went ahead and got me all stirred up!” With righteous redress she slams her breasts down against the base of your cock, near entombing the whole length but for your swelling tip prodding betwixt the barrows. True revenge is apparently found six inches under, buried in cold, regal ghost-flesh.

Her words do jog your memory. You didn’t know until now why those particular lines stood out to you, but you vividly recall reading in her book that as entities that are both born from and live by powerful emotions, they lose some of their own essence when they give off said emotions. This instigates a sort of survival impulse, whereby they try and extract powerful emotions from others to replenish themselves. Fear is the cheap and easy one – widely applicable – but to every spectre, love is the true nectar. Not to mention the potent life energies to be reaped as a consequence of making love. That even remains as the man enters into undeath with her, long after he’d been weaned off fear and ignorance.

“Ah…” Your eyes flutter closed as you tilt your head back. deeper into Elaphi’s bosom, enjoying Ardrienna’s soft breasts as she squeezes and presses and slides them along your manhood. In hindsight, you can see how your actions had led to this outcome. Still… to be held up and used like this…

“C-can you at least let me down?”

“What and miss out on seeing your cute expressions as you squirm?” She poses her own question clear enough but the only answer that she offers yours is a lewd sneer as she wraps her arms up under your legs and grabs your ass, bringing you that much closer. About as loud a ‘No.’ as one could possibly, non-verbally give. Your thighs heft the weighty orbs, sitting them entirely in your lap and ensconcing all but the very tip throbbing so intoxicatingly close to her plump, seductive lips. So close you can feel her icy breath rolling over the tingling glans, so painfully close she could simply part her lips and reach out to lick it.

With a sultry smirk, she does much more.

You let out a low moan and clench your fists hard enough to hear the knuckles grind in protest. You flex your legs, crossing them over her back and clenching as ecstatic ghostflame flickers up your spine, setting each muscle alight and aquiver with shuddering stimulation as she simultaneously dives forward into her own bosom and pulls you deeper into it. Ringlets bounce as her her long flaxen hair splays out about her prodigious, overflowing bust and slender, elegant shoulders. Her tongue very quickly finds the sensitive tip, swirling about then lashing deeper as she draws as much of your length into her mouth as her huge breasts could possibly allow.

Elaphi quivers behind you as Ardrienna halts there with the better half of your cock in her mouth, her face squished either side by boob as her cheeks bulge, tongue fluttering and flickering about as she savours and explores each inch of her prey, circling over the glans and along the ridge, making your lower body tense and quiver again in blissful agony, but for a ghost she’s remarkably substantive and remarkably unbudging to all your writhing. She moans, near whining, the satisfied vibrations travelling down your shaft and arousing your loins. Her form seems to glow or radiate with vigor as she feeds on your pleasure.

You, on the other hand, are nowhere near as steadfast to all her wringing. She begins bobbing her head, her breasts heaving and shaking with the motion as she bounces on her heels, holding you ever close. It’s like being embraced by a gently undulating wave of lust and love. It doesn’t take long before your own moans and groans are joined from below. They intensify with each zenith as you ride the peaks of ecstasy, the harder she moans, the better she feels. It is as though your cock is trapped in this feedback loop of carnal pleasure, a runaway carriage with only one messy, white outcome to splatter down her throat.

The cleavage between her enormous mounds grows slick with spit and warm, though not through friction. Her ghostly flesh still frigid as death itself. Rather than describing this feeling as tactile warmth, it would be better to describe it as something else. Much like how the soft give of her smooth skin isn’t necessarily tangible. Spiritual, perhaps. It’s the kind of warmth a heart could understand. And now – apparently – your cock too. Your brain can’t, so it stops trying.

Adrift on a rising tide of pleasure, you hang limp in Elaphi’s arms, surrendering your body entirely to Ardrienna’s ministrations as her bouncing locks, heaving breasts and lavishing lips bring you closer and closer to climax. With a final cry your balls tighten and your loins boil over. If not for your sudden clenching, gasping groan, you’d never know it from the outside, the slutty ghost princess keeping her pace unabated even as she sucks and swallows mouthful after mouthful of cum. She remains unflinching to the thick, hot ropes spurting into the back of her mouth until eventually she decides on simply throating as much as she can and clinging tight.

A new wave of bliss crashes over you; araft over turbulent currents of ecstasy, you orgasm for the second time in quick sucession, though an immediate dissonance slices through the pleasure. Yourself currently at the tail end of your own, your load has already been spent within her ghostly throat-pussy, no more seed forthcoming, nor the mechanics of it as your sensitive manhood enters a refractory period.

Then, some how it feels as though you were experiencing some one else’s orgasm. The train of thought having finally reached up to here, you belatedly notice Elaphi falter, Ardrienna beginning to quiver as she holds onto you for dear death, her orgasm apparent now in her shuddering squeals and moans as her powerful spectral arousal washes over you. The potency of it sends a rapturous Elaphi to her knees, your own limbs so leaden now that you crumple with her. Yours was a product of taut, overfull balls and a heavenly pair to bury your cock into. Hers is made of a kind of stuff that’s inconceivable to you. Incomprehensible, the chthonic cocktail of emotions nearly causes you to black out, overwhelmed. You have neither the lifespan nor the life experience to even begin to parse out this Gordian entanglement.

Ardrienna’s indefatigable, insatiable grip carries her down with you until the three of you end up in a crumbled heap, Elaphi cradling you and Ardrienna with her head buried in your crotch, milking even as you dribble remnant cum across her waiting tongue. In the night-wind-swept silence of the glade her soft slurping is all you hear.

With your arms released now, one quite naturally finds its way to caressing Ardrienna’s pale gold hair, while the other rests on one of Elaphi’s thick thighs. It’s not until a long moment passes that the princess begins to extract herself from your cock with a lewdly lust-stirring slurp and a wet pop as she audibly swallows, hovering there before you for a moment longer before rocking back onto her heels. It swiftly becomes apparent that she couldn’t quite take the entirety of your load, hot sticky strings briefly connecting the cum-smears from her face to her breasts before snapping.

With the cakes scattered and her face splattered, the mood is quite subtly different from what a tea-table would suit. The table and chairs are taken away as Ardrienna cleans herself off finger by licked finger, furniture vanished to nothingness as all that remains is the soft blanket over the tender earth. Regrettably, she fixes her top.

It seem ridiculous to you as you think about it but as you lay together on the blanket, you hold the ghost close for warmth, an arm about her and your hands clasped, the two of you fending off the gentle night-time breeze as it teases the broad oak leaves. Elaphi loiters nearby, a blush on her cheeks as she rests a hand upon the hilt of her greatsword, pretending the demeanour of her station while her mind evidently is stuck on watching Ardrienna deepthroat your cock.

From your reclining position, you turn your head to steal a glance at the pacing redhead. “I had wondered earlier, but… what exactly is the deal between you two? Why is it that you almost seem… connected?”

“Hmmm?” Ardrienna stirs a little as she ponders your question, her head resting soundly upon your shoulder. “How interesting that you’d ask a question like that. What makes you think that?” Genuine curiosity saturates her words, no hint of guile or gull.

“I just… I don’t know. It’s just a feeling.”

“Intuition then, not insight.” You tilt your head as you wonder if she’s still cataloguing information about you even after the match has been made. “Well, that’s fine too. You’re pretty close to the mark.”

“Oh?”

“Elaphi and I are indeed one, but different. I. We, are also the carriage, for that matter.” You look over, spying the spectral steed, silently standing at its reins. She shakes her head with a laugh. “That’s just a dead horse, dear.”

It snorts.

“…”

“Anyhow… then are you… the…” You search haltingly for the right words. “Core?”

She shakes her head, flaxen locks dancing over your chest. “No, you could say that the carriage is the true entity and that I am just an extension of it.” You try to think back to whether or not you’d read of any such being in the book she’d given you. She giggles. “Not all existences are so easily categorised, dear. If I must out us, I suppose we’d be closer related to a living armour, though technically those aren’t necessarily always undead. You see, when we died, both Elaphi and I felt immense resentment. I, towards never finding true love, her towards failing to protect me. Our powerful emotions of regret and despair tainted the carriage. Over time these emotions metastasised, haunting the carriage until so much negative energy built up that it began to call our souls back to it – to call the source of the resentment. We were more or less hollow, wandering spirits at this point but it provided the perfect catalyst for us to have our souls reawakened.”

She goes quiet a moment, organising her thoughts perhaps, or just taking a short rest to appreciate your company in this moment, starkly contrasting what her life has been until now, so very long and lonely. “The problem was, since the resentment that haunted the carriage came from both Elaphi and I and had tangled and merged into the one emotion, when we were called back to the carriage our souls too had begun to merge. We were still two distinct spirits at that point, or three, if you count the carriage itself but time has long since erased the distinction between us.

The carriage, despite being every bit the same spiritual entity as us, possessed no real ego. Of the three of us, I came to be the more… ‘active’ aspect. Elaphi’s regret was centred around me after all. Of course, in no way do I mean to imply her emotions were any lesser than mine – and don’t let the big lug fool you,” Ardrienna chuckles sweetly, “she’s every bit as there as I am, even if she prefers to remain dormant like the good, quiet, loyal bodyguard she is.”

You see the redhead crack a soft smile at that. “The both of us are also the carriage. You have already read their entry. You can think of it like a Jinn’s jar. It’s as much a part of us as we are it. We can’t stray too far from it, nor it from us. But!”

She looks up at you, grinning smugly as she reaches a supple, slender arm out to the carriage, which to your vast disbelief begins to shrink before your eyes until it’s nothing more than an ornate toy in the palm of her hand. “We can do this and then go wherever we want.” You shake your head in amazement.

“Then you can change its form at will?”

“Of course. I can even make it bigger on the inside than the outside!… Don’t ask me how, we’ll only both get headaches.”

“Huh…” You murmur into the quiet of the night, thinking to yourself. “Do you do that often?”

She shakes her head. “No, I’ve taken long trips before and travelled with others without the use of the carriage, but for the most part, destiny has always found a way to call me back to these roads. I had to wait for you, after all.” She grins and you shake your head wryly, unwillingly charmed by her teasing optimism.

A long silence follows as she gives you time to digest all of what’s happened. Perhaps, she’s lost in her own ruminations, too.

…

You let out a long sigh, sliding down her chest until you slip down onto your back, your head resting in her lap. Seamlessly, she begins to brush her fingers through your hair in a motion so smooth, so casual and natural as to give the impression you’d already been married for a couple years by this point. Between her crowning bosom and the vast expanse of sparkling night sky, you don’t know which view is more magnificent. “So… you and I…” A stranglingly complex whirl of emotions rises, elation, equanimity, regret. There’s definitely more positivity than not, though. You feel she senses that.

“Mhm. Told you.” There’s a smug expressions that flits across her features as she looks out over the ocean. “And don’t fret about your family too much. We’ll figure something out. I have many friends less tethered than I, they could deliver word of you. I have many more who owe me greatly and could easily part with a castle or two.”

Her words certainly soothe. You look up at her regal and dignified bearing. Entirely unalike the rapacious seductress from before. The tales you’d heard didn’t seem to imply one of her kind could switch between both so easily. Rather, they indicated brief moments of the former, interspersed by vast stretches of the latter. “You seem a little more composed than I would have thought.” She quivers for a moment, then chuckles dryly.

“I have to be. Your life is precious to me. And there’s still much you need to sort out, besides. There will be plenty of time once you’re actually dead dead. And… once you do die…” She looks down at you with a glinting crimson omen. “Don’t think you’re going to get any rest.”

Your dick shivers. “R-right… So, ah…” You change the topic. “About what I have to do… You made it seem like there was no hope for that. So what exactly do you mean?… I thought I was…”

“Oh, you don’t need to worry.” She pauses then shoots you a lascivious look. “About that, anyway. As I said, we’ll organise something.”

“Then, if that’s sorted, what about me? Us?”

“It could be said that you’re only half a step into our world now. Of course, you can’t step back, but you’ll have to spend the rest of your natural life before you’re able to take the other half of that step.”

“So I’ll still have to grow old then die?”

She pulls a face and tilts her head from side to side, as if weighting her options. “That depends on how we handle it. There are magics that can exhaust your life force to give you extended youth and vigour. Usually they’re quite Faustinian in nature but in our case the exchange works in our favour. Or we could let it play out naturally. It’s unlikely disease will get you in your old age, but in either case you’ll most likely just die in your sleep.” She chuckles. “There are even stories of men who take years to realise they’re already dead.”

You shake your head, not entirely comfortable with how casually she’s talking about your death. You suppose for the undead it’s akin to planning a baby shower. “I guess we can think about it later. So, what are you planning? Are you going to some how pass the letter on to them? I’m the only unmarried heir though. Or, I was. They won’t be able to inherit the branch estate.”

She thinks a moment. “Say… do you think you can convince them to give up their humanity in return for their ideal life?”

You think on it a moment, ruminating on each of their characters, diligent, forthright and stubborn…ly insistent on doing as little as possible. “I don’t think they’ll need much convincing.”

“Perfect. Your darling wife is quite connected you know. I’ll pull a few strings, get them set up in a new home. They needn’t worry for overhead anymore. If it’s servants they want, a few zombie girls will naturally come flocking for their powerful mana.”

“Powerful mana?”

She looks you over with a smirk. “You didn’t think I wouldn’t account for that powerful bloodline of yours, did you? Unless you’re some kind of anomaly, I assume one of your parents are the same.”

“But…. We’re cursed.”

“Oh yes. That Curse of Indolence is some nasty work. But… a curse and a blessing are two sides of the same coin and a curse of indolence is already a primitive form of necromancy. Though I say primitive, perhaps primal would have been a better word. It’s by no means weak. At this point, it’s so heavily integrated with your bloodline, it’s impossible to cure but… don’t you know?” She smirks. “What could possibly be more indolent than the dead? Your kinsmen will make for some powerful monsters and incubi. Why, if we convince them to turn and relocate, you and I both could be richly rewarded.”

You feel a huge relief lift off your shoulders, the euphoria in having the weight of duty lifted from you makes you feel like rolling over, burying your face in her lap and taking a long nap. You’re certain they’d go along with it, especially if it involved easy, risk free money. Part of you wonders; if there was such a truth behind the curse then how could it be absolutely nothing has come of it until now? Then again, you suppose it would be hard to research whilst afflicted by such a curse. “Then… what of us? Much as I’d like to just pick somewhere and lie down with you forever… I really don’t want to get in the way of what you’re doing.”

She beams at you. “Fufufu~ How sweet of you. You’re right, I don’t mind taking a few breaks here and there, but I have to admit, asides from wanting to find my own love one day… I’ve become quite addicted to the feeling of setting other people up. The taste of their happiness and pure joy is… something I’d love to be able to share with you, dear. So… just think of your darling wife’s carriage as your new home. Within it, you can do as you like. The more of your essence I have; the more powerful I get, the more luxurious your home becomes. You just have to travel around with me, on this endless quest of mine. I’ll show you all the wonders of the world, all from the comfort of your own home.”

You can’t help but grin. “That… does sound appealing.”

…

A little while longer passes. There’s obviously no warmth in the rays of the moon, but her pale light makes you feel calm and tranquil all the same. The gentle breeze, only just stronger than ‘barely there’ circles about the both of you, brushing gingerly across your skin and down your shirt. It’s a cool breeze that brings a shudder deeper than bone, so you instinctively cuddle up just a little deeper into Ardrienna’s embrace, strange as it might sound, given her spectral nature. Upon reaching there in your train of thought, intrusive suggestions begin to encroach and it especially doesn’t help that the wind breathes through her hair, immersing you in willowy wafts of her ghostly perfume.

Though she was absent until now, lost in her own thoughts, she stiffens faintly and squirms a little as though suddenly tapped into yours. Rolling over, you prop yourself up. Rising to sit beside her again, her head turns to you as you do so. She’s looking at you, or possibly into you. But similarly, her gaze has a faraway quality to it. You find your breath halting as you reach up with your free hand to collect a few errant strands of flaxen silk displaced by the breeze.

Even as you brush them aside you can’t tear your eyes from her soft pink lips, parting slightly in invitation. Her lids half close as you lean in, her meeting you halfway. Hand still upon her cheek, finger a twitch from looping the strands of her hair over her ear, you feel her jaw open, lips parting wider as her soft skin meets with yours.

The remnant thoughts in your head finally melt away, the breath to sustain them stolen the moment she lured your tongue into her mouth with her own, your heart beating up in your throat so loud you’re almost afraid she’ll taste it. She leans back slightly only to kiss deeper as you pursue; playfully teasing, the vestal princess giggling coyly as she drags you through her sanctum by the hand. At this point you don’t know who’s leaning into who. She lays a palm flat upon your breast, feeling your heart rumble while the other laces its fingers through yours as it rests rooted to the ground – perhaps you’re holding each other up then.

In deliberate, delicate motions her jaw keeps moving as she kisses you, gently opening and closing as her plump lips and dexterous tongue work, plucking and pulling at your own as though it were an instrument. You eagerly lose yourself into her melody. Barely even aware of it, your free hand begins to slide down her cheek, loose strands hanging back down, forgotten in the allure of her figure. You trace her contours and curves with tentative fingers, down her neck, bridging the gap between throat and shoulder via the precariously thin clavicle, you map her with touch in the vain attempt to comprehend what this euphoria is.

Your hand slides down her breast, making her gasp into the kiss as your fingertips brush the stiffening nipple hidden below the scant layers of deep crimson cloth. You continue down her flank until your hand comes to a natural rest by her hip as you struggle to remember to breathe. Her own hand remains steadfast over your heart, as if she were sure that this was all that mattered. The two of you shift, her breasts pressing up against your chest, the hand between a conduit joining your hot pulsing organ to her cold and slumbering, spectral one.

You close your eyes briefly, unable to look at her as you break the kiss lest you fall to Pandemonium eternally. You rest your forehead against hers as you suck in deep lungfuls of air. “Ardrienna…”

“Darling~ Haah~mph.” Drawling, lips shimmering wet in the moonlight with loves’ ichor and a mix of saliva stringing from cool surface to surface, she soon pursues with relentless ardour. Out of breath herself, yet straining to have more of you. Some deep, primal part of you surges in response to her. The hand on her hip rises, cupping the side of her bosom before squeezing in desperation; you don’t know if it’s desire or a result of her robbing your breath once more.

Her small, soft, slender hand digs in through the neck of your shirt, dislodging your clothes and partially undressing you as she plants her skin directly to yours. Your own hand goes from groping the generous curve of her breast to seeking for the offending hem keeping her silken squishyness from you. Soon, passionate kiss unabated, the two of you are doing your best to be rid of any clothes separating you. You don’t know how she managed to get your top off without breaking the kiss, but you know you had to arduously peel each and every inch of the dress off from her ghostly white skin.

Kiss now broken as you work, she squirms under you as she makes it easier for you to disrobe her but for the age off it, it’s less an article and more a contraption. Never the less, strewn though she was, bits of soft flesh peeking out here and there, you’d more or less disrobed her. You stop a brief moment to survey her, a coy expression on her face as she bites at a finger, the subtle welcoming spread of her legs as she feels your excited gaze run the length of her. The yearning heat with which she watches in turn, implores as you remove your trousers once more, baring a stirring manhood to the ghostly princess, is nothing shy of infernal.

On your knees between hers, you approach with no earthly desire but as the ascetic, appreciative of the tender beauty of nature and the lulling, rapturous lure of pure femininity. There wasn’t a shred of a lecherous look upon your face. Thus, you don’t know why she’d trick you so, nor why you’d find Elaphi’s foot planted soundly into your ribs. She sends you rolling onto your back, off Ardrienna with measured ease. Knowing the two – though they are two – largely act as one you turn to the offended princess with bewilderment and askance.

Smirking, she shakes her head at your foolishness, coquettishly covering her immodesty with her arms. “Just what kind of intentions did you have, mister? Didn’t you listen to me at all?” Still rock hard from the earlier moment, you cock doesn’t mind at all the sudden looming appearance of the bare amazonian woman as she lowers herself down atop you in a straddle. Ardrienna herself slips up behind you and with surprising strength, wraps her arms under yours and pulls you up into her bosom into a half-slouched sitting position. Seems these girls rather like keeping you pinned between them. You don’t find it especially disagreeable.

Her words ooze into your ears in devilish seductions, melting about your mind even as you are so currently fixated upon the big redhead, her emerald eyes smouldering with desire. She parts her wet lower lips about your member in an excruciatingly slow motion, due part to her eking out the moment, part to the crushing tightness of her amazonian womanhood. “I’m the ghost of a maiden in love. I want romance, I want a gentleman to sweep me off my feet, but what were you going to do? You were going to take my first and violate me like some rutting beast.” She lets out a long sigh that drips wistfulness. “But that’s why a delicate princess like me has a trusty knight. To defend me from beasts like you. She’s going to milk the beast out of you until you’re ready to be a gentleman.”

Her tongue flicks out to your ear, making you groan in bliss as she licks sensuously up the length while Elaphi sinks down it, your cock plunging into her wet and muscular walls until her puffy, hairless base squishes up against yours, tip nudging against the firm ring of her cervix. You let out a wavering groan that drifts off into the night air ensconced in Elaphi’s own surprisingly girlish moan. Her insides, like Ardrienna’s mouth, are frigidly cold and yet neither unpleasant nor jarring. You don’t know if you’re allowed to feel this good fucking another woman with your own so close behind. Even if they are as one. Ardrienna’s ensuing lewd promise allays some of those fears. “And then I’ll fuck the gentleman out of you. Then, you can violate me to your heart’s content, my dear husband~”

Her words, starting sweet and demure grow low and sultry as Elaphi’s powerful thighs quiver over your torso, pulling herself off your hilted cock inch by arduous inch. Ardrienna’s depraved illicitations end in a desirous husky growl punctuated by a meaty smack as the full weight of the musclebound ghost impales herself upon your swollen girth once more.

A mirthful undertow to the ceaseless stream of sweet nothings lets you know that Ardrienna is clearly enjoying putting you in your place, or seeing you be put into it – but you really can’t tell if it’s Elaphi’s influence or her own tastes driving it more. Her princessly charms belie a shrewd assertiveness; a heart that yearns for compromise is necessary to bring two others together, no matter how disparate they might appear from each other at first. To have haunted in the way she has for so long is proof enough of a powerful will and determination.

Then is this nature something buried deep within her, is it born of her physically imposing guardian or perhaps does it derive from the both of them? If this is her first step at setting up the negotiations for your relationship then she shows her talents in leading with the strong front, while promising the sweet, succulent soils to bury your carrot in later. Neither proposition seems to excite her any less. She seems to relish in giving as much as she does taking. In other words, a ‘switch’.

You gaze over the honed body of the woman riding you, seeing her abs clench as she milks your length relentlessly with her inner walls, watching the long amber locks sway and tousle over her pendulous mounds, pale pink nipples jutting proudly each as her enormous bosom rocks and bounces. You stare at her, transfixed by the sound of her flesh clapping into yours, the scent of otherworldy lust, the sight of her tightly gripping pale pink pussy clinging to your shaft as she rises and the sight of her abs tensing as she descends. You lift your hands to her belly, feeling you thrust up into her guts in the rippling of muscular contractions as she takes you.

You can’t help but ponder on this woman in this moment as she looms over you, so fiery and beautiful. Like a pheonix-ghostflame, wild and unfettered. One of three, yet an equal part of the whole, as much as Ardrienna plays the face, some equal part of the equation has to be this steadfast, protective knightess you’d taken for little more than a puppet until recently. All of a sudden a deep and profound thought rings through your core – it’s a little unfair to not face this woman for who she is, isn’t it? Especially whilst balls deep in her quivering pussy and butting up against the tense ring to her womb.

But, shouldn’t that have come long before this?

These questions ripples angst through your mind, rocking the sea of sensuous pleasure currently suffusing it. Ardrienna talks, communicates. Whether or not you’ve so deep a connection with her remains to be seen, but you and Elaphi have scarcely shared a word. Then, how? The yearning ringing through your emotions is clearly felt by the pair – sympathetic apparitions as they are – and Elaphi smiles, seeing fit to answer you in her own method of communication. Reaching down to your hands, she cups them with her own. They’re warm. Strangely warm, for a ghost, but perhaps it’s not a natural heat, but a symbolic one. These hands are what she uses to protect, so why wouldn’t they feel warm?

It’s enough to make your heart thrum an odd beat as she threads your fingers with her own. Holding the back of your hands as if guiding, teaching you how to hold something. She lifts them up. Of course, teaching you the right way to hold her breasts. The one remains, trapping your hand to her bosom. The other braces itself upon your chest as she leans forward. Your other hand needs no such accompaniment to linger, half sunk into the firm but giving softness of the amazoness’ tits.

Her full lips press to yours, by no means the doll-like plump ones of Ardrienna but delightful all the same, if… ‘rugged’ could be applied in the most feminine sense of the word. The odd nick and scar lining their fullness serve as points to fixate upon, lightly tug with your lips and kiss. Another pair come down to linger close by your ear as you’re distracted in Elaphi’s. “You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you my darling treasure? I’d thought it’d take you longer to see her as more than just a fixture of the carriage, like the horse. Hearing it from me is one thing, but I’m well aware she doesn’t make it easy. I’ve known her for so long, dear, that I know her like the back of my own hand. But even in life it has always been such that others find her hard to grasp.” Her hair tickles, ringlet curls brushing across your skin as she turns to look at where your chests meet, smirking. “But I see she’s more than willing to give you a hand with that. I already knew I wanted you to be my man, but you just had to go and be so perfect, didn’t you?”

You’ve nothing to say to that. You’re lost, awhir in sensation – Elaphi’s no more limited laying atop you than she was riding you, her insides still writing to her own pulsing rhythm, her hips gyrating and grinding against yours maddeningly to the cacophonous squelch of lurid lust. Her arms wrap about you powerfully, her tongue emulating similar movements, affording your own no rest as the soft wet length slithers over in hypnotising spirals. Ardrienna’s words lather through one ear and out the other, only snippets echoing about in your barely lucid mind. You caught the end only because Elaphi stopped her kiss long enough that your thoughts weren’t awash in the sound of her tongue sliding over your own.

Though the folds of her inner walls keep sucking at your cock in rippling undulations, her hips stop and she breaks the kiss, breath tickling as her soft lips skim across your cheek. The relative silence is deafening and the twin tongues lapping at your lobes before licking equally slow and equally wetly up the length of your ears strike you like lightning out of the blue, intense enough to make you shudder bodily and ecstatic enough to nearly make you cum inside her then and there. Each chuckling softly into your ears in low breaths – hearing Elaphi’s mature and smoky tones for the first time – they each conspire to give you no quarter, tongues returning to lick and nibble on your ears as her hips resume their grinding.

Ardrienna’s flaxen locks drape an intimate curtain about your face as she leans into you from above, each ghost girl alternating at random intervals between pampering your ears and claiming your lips. You barely notice your first orgasm other than a quaking of your hips and a helpless groan into Elaphi’s mouth. You’d believe that neither had noticed, for how steady their pace at teasing and toying remains, but the twin moans in your ears say enough. You’d wonder if the princess moaned in sympathy, or if their blurred nature means they shared sensations as much as they do thoughts and feelings and, apparently, you. But your head is completely, blissfully empty – not even occupied with thoughts of thrusting, each time the fragment of a thought tries to coalesce, a squeeze or a lick or a hot breath into your ear snuffs it out.

There’s no temporal distinction between your first climax and the second, other than the growing pool of juices spattering your conjoined hips and leaking between the slick tracts of flesh and ectoplasm. Your balls ache with need and churn heavy, seeming to produce more even as Elaphi milks it out. The circular rut she’s trying to wear into your pelvis remains inhumanly persistent, as does the concise control over her inner contractions. Your fingers knead and grope at her breasts primally, no desire there to upset her flow and earn leverage and respite in all this consumptive copulation; only worship of these twin mounds of fertility. That they belong to an undead means little to you, the question of whether or not you can impregnate a ghost matters nothing. The answer’s only in how hard you try.

Their tongues and mouths continue their relentless assault, lining a warzone up and down your cheeks, ears and neck. You can’t tell if you’re not just delusional due to an overload of sensation, or if there is truly some spectral echo making their soft breaths and wet whispers fall over you in rippling waves. Ardrienna’s chest neither rises nor falls behind you, yet you can feel the rhythm in her presence all the same, head resting so deep in her bosom.

Between her behind you and Elaphi on top, your whole world feels like it’s fading away to just these two darling revenants. You can’t feel your legs, nor can your hands grasp for the earth nor or any kind of tactile stability, lost as they are in the soft, squishy, bouncy breasts of the amazon riding above. You groan and shiver as she dives into your lips once more, leaving Ardrienna to pepper your cheek, ears and neck while the redhead greedily plunders your mouth with her tongue even as she slams her hips into yours and moans into your mouth. Her walls clench down tight about your own distending girth, conflict broiling as the sodden vice tightens about the throbbing length, balls clenching as your loins overflow, pumping. The conflict resolves itself as her tightness only proves to make you cum harder, deep into her chthonic chambers.

She kisses you so long and ardent as she milks the remnants of your climax that you begin to lose breath. Your chest burns, though with desire for air or unbridled ecstasy you cannot tell. It’s a miracle the ghost girl recalls enough to gradually retreat from the kiss, allowing you breath, if momentarily. Between the multiple successive orgasms and the light headedness as Elaphi slowly, inexorably pulls herself up off your cock, ‘till her gripping cunt reluctantly releases it with a lewdly wet pop, you truly don’t have the energy or fire left to want to ravage Ardrienna…

Though, as the thought of her baring herself before you takes hold, you can’t help but to already feel your lusts rekindle. Her ploy seems successful. The princess in question slips away from behind you, dropping you to the floor without her support and reminding you briefly again of your fatigue. However, as you look over to her, you find you’re not quite empty just yet.

Your heart, previously pounding solidly in your chest, suddenly falters. She lies out over the blanket before you, her pale white skin gleaming in the moonlight. Her spread thighs, themselves lusciously thick, irresistible things, capture your libido to draw it down to the ghostly pink between. Two delicate, gracefully slender fingers press into her plump and glisteningly slick labia, spreading them for you in as much invitation as the rest of her.

Her long anticipation has mixed with hot excitement and desperate need into something volatile that rocks her prodigious chest with each shaky breath – physically redundant but emotionally voluminous as she cutely scrunches her face up in a slightly pained expression, lips quivering about a knuckle she bites as she looks away from you coyly, though every inch of her seems to shiver and ache excruciatingly with the forlorn agony of every second, every minuscule fragment of a moment where you’re not buried balls deep into her virginal ghosthood.

She tempts you. Every action of hers, every quivering look whether knowingly or unknowingly rouses the beast within to higher fervour, but, while Elaphi had lazily slid herself off from on top of you, she isn’t far. You’re more than halfway exhausted and she deserves her first time to be something with a little more dignity. You reign it in as you gracelessly roll over to your belly and dredge yourself up to your knees, making the long and arduous shuffle the few feet it takes to sidle up to her thighs, her eyes glinting with unabashed arousal as she lifts and spreads them wider for you. You lift one each, letting them rest over your hips leaving your pulsing, throbbing cock to rest over her sweltering delta, a frigid heat, cold spectral not-flesh burning with a spiritual desire.

You let it loom over her pussy, leaking your own potent excitement into the only hair upon either of their mounds – a near translucent tuft of soft, almost downy pale blonde there for aesthetic more than anything else. Instead, you devote lavish attentions to her body proper, hands roaming teasingly over her inner thighs before moving up to stroke and massage at her soft but still slim belly. Ardrienna moans and squirms under you, biting that finger in earnest to stifle her lewd and indecent cries as you bring your head down to line kisses along her inner thigh.

You spy Elaphi out of the peripheral corner of your eye, not for trepidation but because the rapid movements her hand makes – buried in her recently creamedpied cunt – catches your eye, speaks of her implicit approval with your current pace. Though you can’t help but wonder if it isn’t also some part Ardrienna’s desire to get things moving along.

She’ll be kept on tenterhooks then; you bypass her nether regions scantily close, hands continuing to stroke and caressing her smooth, shapely belly, elegantly slight but not hardened whatsoever by toil; but at least the cakes were kept to responsible moderation. Can ghosts even gain weight? Knowing well by now their uncanny ability to somewhat glean your thoughts you swiftly do away with these ones in particular, filling your head with the delicate scent and taste of her pallid skin instead, as that’s far less likely to evoke their ire. Upward, inexorably upward your lips trail their lavish affections, each one a small spark landing over the parched tinder of her lust.

By the time you reach the luxuriously large and giving pair adorning her chest, sitting heavy and fat as she lays upon the ground – rivers of ghost-locks flowing about, over and between – that tinder had already turned into a wildfire. Atop her completely now, resting some parts of your weight upon her, propping yourself up as best you can as you squeeze and grope her yielding pale bosom, lips wrapping smugly about the pink buds cresting them, her arms begin to move. So, so intimately close as you are, you feel her infernal desire for you rolling off her. You flinch as she moves. Popping a spit-soaked finger our of her mouth, you expect the worst of her lusts, but the absolute poise, dignity and grace with which she wraps her arms around and embraces you stirs guilt in your heart as her large, gleaming gemstone eyes lock with yours.

“Darling~ Pleease~” She begs, whines, wiggling her hips under you and grinding her stiff, cool clit over the underside of your throbbing cock. “Put it in, dear~ I want… n-need to feel you inside me~”

You relent, abashedly releasing her bosom and propping yourself up with one arm, offering her a kiss of apology while the other slips between her belly and yours as you grab the base and try to angle it into her slippery folds, made all the harder by the restless movement of her hips. You’re not heartless enough to chastise her though, this is a situation of your own making. The fumbles lend a purer, more youthful air to the moment as she needily drives her tongue into your mouth, trying to claim every inch of it as hers with loving licks. She moans and quivers beneath you as you end up grinding your tip against her clit again, the situation leaving you as breathless and exasperated as she as her plump wet pussy kisses slick love along your length once more.

It’s to halted hearts that she bucks her needy hips into yours. Instead of slipping through to butt up against her stiff clit again, it squishes into her incredibly tight entrance, pressure building as your irresistible spear butts into her penetrable shield. With a shared gasp, you finally bring your hips down, your added weight and pressure – her added need and excitement, birthing a deep and total penetration, your balls clapping wetly against her ass as your hips meet, her legs instinctively clenching about your waist as she cries out in blissful agony.

You felt for the briefest moment another barrier being pierced and the quiver of pain that wracks through her lower body preceding the deluge of pleasure tells you the mark of her virginity was no more, taken by you. Late, but never no longer. The notion swells your heart and cock in equal measures. Yours was taken by Elaphi, but technically they’re one and the same so you’re not inclined to dwell on it any further.

She’s more than inclined to let you dwell further in her, however. Your leaking tip presses up against her womb, the entrance half parting to swallow you already. She just holds you tight, barely remembering to kiss, your tongues moving listlessly and instinctively as she puts her energy on adjusting to the way your cock fills and spreads her insides in a way she’s never truly felt before.

You can tell that this is the case by the quivering of her inner walls, uncoordinated and sporadic, by how her frozen body language desperately implores you to wait a moment, by the low sultry moan from the side as Elaphi shudders. “So big~” It seems the big amazonian is sharing the sensation of the smaller ghost’s penetration, perceiving it as it is upon her far smaller frame. A myriad of lewd ideas begin to form in your mind but you push them aside for now. You wonder briefly if that didn’t mean you’d taken Ardrienna’s first twice now, technically, but the plain sincerity in her reaction to having her virginity given to her long awaited lover tells you their connection isn’t without the ability to save herself from spoilers.

Considering this, it doesn’t take Ardrienna long to gather herself from the sudden balls deep, womb battering penetration – she has a certain dignity to maintain as a spectre of some unknown aeons. A little… a lot of cock shouldn’t so easily shake her. This determination, this rekindling of her fires is dashed the moment she loosens her lock on you and you begin to draw your hips back, withering into a weak, lusty moan, thighs shuddering protest against you as you draw your length nearly all the way out, listless leglock turning to ankles loosely crossed behind you.

You retreat far enough her inner walls grip longingly to the ridge of your glans as it nearly pops free before you thrust back in, neither slow nor quick, but grinding through the sodden folds of her writhing walls with an even insistence. You shudder and groan, nearly cumming on the second thrust, the sensation of her wringing pussy licking at your sensitive head and caressing your throbbing length nearly too much to bear.

You pass from her lips, kissing messily down her cheek and neck, your head coming to rest beside hers. She moans and cries aloud into the air as one of her hands come up to thread through your hair and hold you close as the powerful movements of your hips rock the both of you into the ground.

This time she clenches her thighs around you firmer, keeping in rhythm with your thrusts as your girth pistons through the folds of her sodden, spectral slit. You can’t help but respond to her earnestness in kind; wrapping your arms about her in a firm embrace, immersing yourself in her essence, in the pure scent of her pale, porcelain skin, in the sweet alyssum of her winter dawn hair. With a pounding heart and a desperate desire to keep this moment in your breast forever, you squeeze the ravenous ghost, thighs flexing powerfully as you thrust forth. Her own body contorts as she sticks close as spectrally possible, her plump, shapely ass lifted off the ground as her thighs lock about your hips and squish your bases together so tight you hear the squish of her wet pussy lips, feel the portal to her womb giving to the rigid pressure of you throbbing cock. Her soft belly flattens up against your own, and her graceful, elegant spine takes a drastic arch as she flattens as much of herself up against you in a sweet cry of rapture.

Figuring she’s already taken herself halfway off the ground, there’s no real point in keeping this position. With a powerful contraction of your muscles and to the sweet gasp of your ghost wife, you haul her bodily upward, resting back on your haunches. For a short – split, instant of a moment you gaze at her beauty, her long, regal locks bathed in moonlight. The glimmer of love sparkling in her turquoise eyes and the playful desire tugging at the corner of her lips. You burn the image into your mind, to enjoy later her loveability and the knowledge that you’re the only person she’d show this sort of face to. The glimpse you see is only ephemeral, soon to be consumed by the flickering facets of ghostfire lurking deep within her eyes as her lips touch yours.

Her tongue ensnares you as she takes full initiative in the kiss but to be tactlessly honest, it’s nowhere near as captivating as her gaze. It’s like she can see into your soul – but that of course, is a given. More than that, it’s like her all consuming stare can not only see into your soul, but touch it, cradle it, the bounds of flesh and bone melting before her ardent love until she bears the very foundation of your being to her bosom. It’s almost enough to forget your cock, buried balls deep in her tight, writhing pussy. Your arms clenching about her, squeezing lissom limbs to her delicate shoulders and pressing her breasts to your chest, are there as a mere formality by comparison.

Pinned to her slender torso by your grip, there’s little further that she can reach than your own hips to coordinate her ceaseless bouncing. It’s a delicate affair maintaining your own position with her weight, ethereal as it is, lending all of itself to your front. Complicated even more by joining her rhythm, thrusting your hips up against hers as her ass comes crashing down on your thighs in wet slaps, coaxing contractions eking out a veritable river of your anticipation to flow into the delta of her excitement. Clear, slick and sticky fluids lather where your hips meet, deluging more with each plunging thrust.

You’d entrust instinct to the detailed machinations of this lurid dance but that implies a capacity for agency and yours is indisposed, enthralled to the flickering wisplight lurking in her loving eyes. Your hips are moving on their own but Ardrienna shakes her own hips with far too much intent to be in the same predicament as you. The princess may well be trapped in this private world of pleasured weal with you but it is a trap of her own making; she’s more than poised to milk every ounce of ecstasy from your corporal form – then slake herself in the font of rapture thudding in your breast.

In fact, to aching chest and shuddering breath you realise that she’s already well on her way to it. You utter a wavering groan into her mouth, a garbled thing, breath stolen, toyed with and returned in lascivious licks along your tongue and sucking nips as her lips draw yours in to her teeth, the tiny bites arcing tingly flares in your brain. It shorts: you don’t know if it was the particularly forceful downthrust that undid you, or the squeeze rendering over your sensitive glans as her cervix descends and brings your swollen crown into her womb. You don’t even know if it was the curl in her lips as she made out with you or the cocksure glimmer in her eyes, sure of the cockful deluge impending.

You just know that you’ve already let yourself go, surrendering entirely to her and to the cataclysmic bliss crashing over you. She shudders and it brings you solace. This world, this interstice she weaves, transgressing the borders between life and death, quakes under the magnitude of her climax. The very nature of her being ensures you’ll never be alone in her seductive teasing, there is no pleasure she could inflict upon you that she wouldn’t feel in turn, tenfold. This haptic reverberation goes both ways, your loins already churning to dump the night’s last load deep into her womb suddenly erupt, the crashing wave of her ghostly climax igniting your life essence, flooding your body with the stuff of destiny, your senses screaming with the alarm of fight and flight as your heroic lifeblood is stirred from dormancy, bucking and howling against the shackles of indolence as ancestors bless your balls to breed the life into this tight ghost pussy.

The first rope is closer akin to a meteor shower than ejaculate – which first or when, are academic questions under the constant flow of cum jetting deep into her belly. The second flows into the seventh then the thirtieth, wracking pulses see your balls undulating to the thrum of your hearts as her nails dig into flesh wherever they find purchase, kiss finally breaking only for her to toss her head back in a silent banshee scream robbed in winds of carnality. Huge, heaving bosom providing the perfect target, you bury your face in them and they stifle your own breathless cry. You don’t even know what you’re grabbing any more, other than it’s soft and giving and pleasant and yours. You lose yourself in the sensation of her belly swelling against yours, pumped impossibly full of more cum than you’d ever produced in a lifetime or more, some strange wyrd at work, spurring you.

Hot surges of thick white cum flood her passage, leaking about the ring clenching desperately to the rim of your glans and squirting through her vice like grip to splatter where your groins meet. But most of it continues to pool in her stomach, your heart lurching as the stream of cum seems indefatigable. All the while, her pussy keeps milking your girth, slippery walls squeezing, folds sucking at each distended vein as your engorged manhood disgorges. In many ways her own formidable monstrosity is the more awesome and horrifying. Incorporeal or no, to take on such a heavy load of cum and plead plaintively for more, their bodies are nothing short of a marvel.

Your balls, aching but still swollen, gradually wind down, your skipping heart strained to the brink, any more and you’d be cumming your life out along with it – a fine ending and a finer beginning, but one to come after much preparation and deliberating. Even as it stands you’re not entirely sure you haven’t already squeezed out a few drops of your sanity. Oh, right.

“Puah!” You extract yourself from her breasts and suck in a deep lungful, mind’s eye seeing stars though they may merely be the afterflares of your ponderous orgasm. In lurching back to catch at least one singular breath before you expire, you overbalance.

Chest heaving with exhaustion, the two of you topple back over, her head coming to rest on your chest, yours in the soft blanket, mind momentarily lost in the fading stars as you relish in the feeling of the woman atop you. The two of you lay in spent silence for a long while, punctuated by your ragged breaths and Ardrienna’s soft groans as she feels her belly, your cock still hard inside it, but gradually flagging. A silence only stirred as she shifts atop you, pulling herself up to a sit and then achingly slowly bringing a thigh over your hips, drawing out your softening cock with a wet pop followed by a heavy flow of cum staining the blankets below which she eyes with regret. Though she works silently, you can see Elaphi in the periphery packing up as the sun begins to rise. Eventually, Ardrienna does too, reaching up your body to give you a quick peck on the lips before sighing.

“Come, my darling. Much as I want to just lay here, feeling this forever, the sun doesn’t agree with my delicate complexion. And you need to get some rest too. That… was something else and I’m afraid your soul will be greatly shaken by it. It’ll be better if you rest for now; we travel through the spirit world during the day and you’ll find the experience somewhat taxing. I’ll wake you again as the sun sets, then we can discus…. what on earth that was…, and how we can do it again.” She grins.

With an exhausted chuckle she slides off you, reaching an ethereal hand down to help you up, thoroughly drained as you are, you suppose it’s the least she could do for making you this way to begin with. As you look around, you see nought but the faint depression of the grass of the glade, Elaphi having already so thoroughly packed up. All that remains is the large carriage, its dim glow fading before the dawn and the large skeletal horse, its stoic demeanour betrayed by a front hoof pawing restlessly at the ground.

Little else needs to be said as she leads you in and lays you down. She’d already only half-roused you from sleep anyway, so the moment you lay down upon the comfortable seat and rest your head in her comfortable lap, you’re already beginning to drift away. The last thought to flit through your mind is how peculiarly spacious this seat is, there’s no sensation of nearly rolling off the edge at all. You’ll have to explore her spacial control over this carriage in greater depth but… later.

***

You feel the comforting, paradoxically heartwarming chill from her delicate hand, her elegant fingers entwined with your own as you watch the last rays of gold bleed out into the vast ocean. According to her, you’d travelled the equivalent distance of some days westward along the coast. Indeed, before the sun set you were just able to make out the distant landmass of Thule upon the horizon. You weren’t cognisant of it at all, having slept eerily like the dead the entire time the carriage had passed through the underworld.

“You know… some things feels a little off.” You ponder.

“Hm? What is it dear?” She stirs to look up at you from your shoulder, her headrest.

“I keep getting this feeling. How is it, that from the start, it seems like you already knew? I can accept you’re good, but this seems like something else.”

She blushes cutely, “Well, it’s in my line of work, no? There’s a certain fate to these kinds of things, what kind of ghostly matchmaker would I be if I couldn’t sense it? B-besides… If you must insist…” She turns way from you coyly, though your suspicions were already raised. Such a logical answer cannot account for the innate, almost smug surety. “In essence I’m just a haunted carriage. No matter the shape or form, nor what beast or power draws it, neither if it can fly or swim, on two wheels or four or fourty… Since time immemorial…” She turns to you with a demure, blushing look. “Haven’t all great men loved their chariots?”