All is Forgiven in Victory

Chapter 3

His gaze travelled over her now bare form, taking time to admire the various scars and embellishments that adorned her otherwise pallid skin. While nowhere near as embellished as his own, he could appreciate her for what she was, even what she would possibly become in the klekkets to follow.
Someone had once told him when he was younger, that skin told ones life story, it was a living testament to who someone was as well as their rank. Seef had showed nothing but devotion to their cause, perhaps it were not mere chance he had chosen her?

He paused just under an arms length away and extended his good, right arm, placing one hand beneath the Attendants chin. She did not flinch as he turned her downcast gaze upon him.
For barely a moment he thought he saw hesitation in her dark eyes, an uncertainty that almost filled him with disdain. Few had been where she stood now, she should have been honoured! And then as quickly as the uncertainty had appeared, it was gone. A wise move on her part. In a sense he could perhaps understand her confusion, though he would never have voiced as much.
Normally in cases such as this, when someone of high rank chose a mate, there would be some small sort of ritual, usually performed by one of the priests as confirmation that the couple’s union was within their caste and approved of. In all other cases, Tsavong Lah had abided by such formalities devoutly. This however, was very different and Shimrra’s word that the gods would let this slide in the event that he lead the Yuuzhan Vong to victory, should really have put Seef at ease when he mentioned it.

She had done her best to evade the fear that knotted in her stomach before now, successfully so. So when she felt his talloned hand trail down from beneath her chin to rake along the column of her neck, she was careful not to break eye contact. His hand continued to rake downwards until it travelled down her arm and reached her wrist.
The motion would have seemed, to an outsider, to be almost tender and very unlike him. But Seef knew better.
Tsavong Lah kept a hold of her wrist and drew her closer, pressing the palm of her hand against the razor sharp scales imbedded in his flesh. A searing, white hot pain shot through Seef’s fingertips, extending to her forearm as blood began to flow from the lacerations her hand had suffered. She did not cry out, nor was her discomfort apparent in her expression, she merely embraced the pain.
‘Yes’ The Warmaster thought, he had chosen well.


He closed the gap between them then, pulling her against him.
Where rust-red scales made contact with her skin, fiery, exquisite pain exploded upon her nerve endings, filling her senses and testing her limits to withstand it.
He crushed his lips to hers before she had chance to voice her pain, allowing her the slight oversight of taking the fringed flesh of his lower lip between her own, where she briefly sucked on it.
When he drew back, it was only for a moment as he pushed the attendant, somewhat forcefully, back against the nearby wall. Lowering his head he tentatively nibbled and licked along the column of intricately scarred flesh that clung to her neck and continued working his way up.

Seef, forgetting herself, pulled him against her more so. If he minded, he did not show it, now capturing her earlobe between sharpened teeth.
She allowed a small moan to escape her lips, almost regretting it. She had been with males before, but while she was certain Intendants appreciated some of life’s slight pleasures, she could not say the same of Warriors and certainly not of the Warmaster. In particular one as devout a believer in the true way as Tsavong Lah.
He clenched his teeth down onto the lobe between them then, with an audible growl as he did so. Pointed, fang-like teeth sunk into the fragile flesh beneath them and Seef in turn raised her voice to the gods in both pain and abandon.
Hesitation’s place was taken by a deeper need in those first few moments, she was sure he had sensed it too, feeling his arousal grow hard through the skirt-like pleats of his armour as he pressed against her.

The pair lingered there, Seef’s back still to the wall, for several moments, taking in the sights, sounds and scents of each other. His hands exploring her every contour felt almost as divine as the pain his living armour had inflicted upon her flesh, to such a degree that Seef became almost lost in the arousal of it all.

When next she looked at him, she was sure she saw a hint of amusement in his dark eyes as she struggled to coordinate her hands in an effort to remove the Voduun crab armour – which was everywhere the rust, red scales were not- he was still clad in.
Trying to get Voduun crabs to release their hold on a wearer was harder than she first thought. But it occurred to her, that Warriors spent the majority of their time wearing the creatures more often than not. Now she knew why.
As if sensing her mild frustration, Tsavong Lah took a step back. While he began to wake the living armour from its peaceful slumber, he once again gestured at the Attendant, motioning for her to perhaps move to more suitable surroundings.
Seef considered it pure luck on her part when he did not disagree as she took up place upon the nest-bunk.

The soothing feel of the living bed of moss beneath her shifted to accommodate her form, taking her mind somewhat of the glorious pain she still felt in various places.
Seef was almost disappointed by the distraction, that was until she heard Tsavong Lah speak once more.

“ You have looked upon me once before, would you dare to again if it were the last sight your eyes would take in before your death?”
The Warmaster was well known for his lack of patience with those he deemed to have wronged him or blasphemed against the gods. Not to mention how he would often find new and inventive ways to seek out and punish such people. So as Seef acknowledged his words, fear once again seeped into the cracks of her mind.
Steeling herself, she responded,
“ I would, Warmaster.”
She had not intended to utter the words in such a lustful tone, but found it inexplicably hard not to as she had brought her gaze up to rest upon the sight of his naked form before her. It awoke an almost primal need in her, an ache that she had often felt in his presence, but until now had not understood completely. Eyes roving over the magnificent sight that was Tsavong Lah, Seef noted that there really was not a part of the Warmaster that was not adorned in some way or another. Dark swirls of spiked pattern in both devotional scarring and tattoos snaked around his form, often accentuating certain aspects of his modifications. Such work must have required painstaking accuracy, she thought to herself.

She must have looked like an awe-struck crecheling witnessing their first sacrifice, because he seemed to have that slightly impatient look upon his face again.
Seef responded out of instinct and not formality or standard protocol, by laying back and taking up a rather vulnerable, submissive posture, effectively presenting herself to him. The element of risk was still there and very real to her. If Tsavong Lah had an attack of conscience, he could still take her life easily and no one would ever know she had laid here, no one except the gods. Perhaps that was the reason he did not?

Thoughts such as the ones that had entered the Attendants’ mind, did not so much as figure in Tsavong Lah’s own mind, not when she lay there so provocatively. He found himself almost consumed by the lust that proceeded to assault his senses, and it was apparent in more than simply his actions – as Seef’s travelling gaze well told him.
Another small thought crossed his mind then, one that almost made his nose-ridge wrinkle with disdain. How he envied – the idea was almost perplexing- the likes of Nom Anor.
Seef was of the Intendant Caste after all and he, himself, had found few females among the Warrior Caste that he deemed worthy of this honour save for perhaps the bearer of his only son. Yes, he envied that and despised himself for it also.

He focussed his attention back on the Attendant who lay waiting, taking the time for his eyes to wander over the contours of her lithe form.
Reaching forth, he allowed his hand to travel the paths his eyes had only second before. Gnarled fingertips traced the scars that ran in patterns from her toes to collarbone level. Seef reflexively arched up to meet his touch, clearly taking as much delight in receiving the sensation as he was in administering it.

He was leaning above her now, his un-afflicted hand running up and over one of her tattoo adorned breasts. The talon-like claws of his hand raked lightly over the dark bud of her nipple teasingly enough to draw out a whimper of anticipation from Seef. His reaction to that was instant. Tsavong Lah growled a low, deep growl as he grasped both her hands in the pincers of the Radank claw in place of his left hand and once again captured her lips in a searing kiss. He heard no objections from Seef of course, and as he drew back slightly to nip at her lower lip with sharpened teeth, he could feel her writhe beneath him, rise up to his touch. A motion which caused him to become almost unbearably hard in the process. All would come to those who waited, but gods he wanted to take her.
As if responding to his thoughts, she arched her hips upwards to push against him, feeling his arousal react and tense against the sudden contact, which also drew out another guttural growl from him.

Seef tentatively licked along a deep scar line that travelled along the length of the Warmaster’s jaw bone, tempting him into another lust-filled kiss – An action that added to her increasingly slick arousal-
He then felt her hook one leg awkwardly around him in an attempt to pull him closer to her. Spiteful scaly implants raked against her skin mercilessly, eventually forcing her to let another hiss of pain escape through gritted teeth. The pain discouraged her little and only sought to spur Tsavong Lah on, evidently so as she felt his weight press upon her.
The Attendant inhaled sharply, taking in the Warmaster’s scent as she embraced the pain that now ignited every nerve ending within the near vicinity of scale-assaulted flesh.
The pain was exquisite, and this much was evident in the expression of agony born devotion in Seef’s eyes.

Such devotion was more than arousing to Tsavong Lah. Releasing his pincered hold on her wrists, he took her then, sheathing his straining erection to the hilt within Seef’s own slick arousal.
Seef arched up against him instantly, reciprocating the long, deep and much unexpected thrust. Breath hitched in her throat and her head swam with both pleasure and pain that swept through her nerves.
She then reached up to him, to both steady herself and hold him. Such actions that could have been considered tenderness were lost on them both as Tsavong Lah began to move within her. All coherent thought other than the want, the need for this abandoned them. The pain and pleasure Seef felt merged into one, building continuously with every action taken.
She could feel the tension, the desperate need for release, rise within her. It sought to consume her.
Gone were all her fears of her own impending death should someone find out about this. Let them know, if this was truly to be her last moments, she would have it be such an end.

The all consuming tension continued to build and test the boundaries of her senses, forcing her to repress the urge to voice such things as pleasure. But she was not her own, and her breath fell in ragged, shallow breaths intermixed with soft moans of ecstasy.
When the merge of pain and pleasure became almost too much, Seef felt it suddenly rise more so, erupting in a plethora of sensations so sublime she felt her body tense around him. Her fingers clawed at his shoulders, digging so deep into the flesh that lay beneath them that she was certain that she heard tendons pop deliciously. Wave after wave of pleasurable pain washed over her, causing her to raise her voice to the gods one last time as the impact of orgasm surged through her body.
The sudden explosion of pain from his shoulders, along with the avalanche of pleasure he felt as Seef tensed around his hard member, hurled him into reaching his own intense release. With one final thrust, he felt his liquid heat torn from him within her as he too cried out incomprehensible words that the gods would comprehend clearly.
‘All is forgiven in victory’, he repeated in his mind as he lost himself to the sensations still coursing through his nerves.

******
Tsavong Lah was unaware of how long it had taken for his vision and sense to clear, but he was acutely aware of the dull ache of pain emitted from the small puncture wounds to his shoulders. That and the steady sounds of Seef’s breathing as she too came to her senses.

For several moments they just lay basking in the afterglow of their shared experience. But she would never have fared move first, so it was Tsavong Lah who rose to look at the Attendant beside him. To his surprise, she had averted her gaze as though the switch back to formality had been ordered the instant he had moved.

Seef’s expression was a troubled one, but she was trying not to show it. No doubt she was pondering her fate, had he not made that clear?
He could have her killed for the sake of this indescression remaining between only he and Overlord Shimrra, but he highly doubted that Seef would ever use this against him. If she did, he would see to it that her words were discredited and her death an ignoble one. Cruel as it seemed, he was certain she would share his view on death preferable to being shamed.
That knowledge alone was enough of a deterrent.

He stood now, inspecting the still seeping wounds upon his shoulders as he dressed. Once finished, he glanced back at the prone form of the female on his nest-bunk.

“ Come Seef, I will have need for a communications Attendant in the battle to come.” He ordered bluntly.

Seef pulled herself from the nest-bunk immediately to recover her own robeskin.

“ And see to it that you apply Neathlats to your wounds.”

Neathlats, a sort of living bandage that did little to diminish pain, would hide the fresh wounds that would cause question or draw attention to the Attendant.
Now dressed, Seef thumped her fists to opposite shoulders in a salute.
“ Yes Warmaster.”
She then proceeded to leave the chamber.

Yes, thought Tsavong Lah as she went, such a pity she was the spawn of the Intendants.

END.