#brass hookah

[arthistoryanimalia]

For #NationalDolphinDay 🐬:

Hookah Base in the Shape of a Dolphin

Mughal India, 17th century

cast brass, 16.5 x 13cm

The Khalili Collections MTW 1500

“Smoking was introduced into the Mughal empire at the end of Akbar’s reign, when Asad Beg, one of his noblemen, brought tobacco and hookahs, or waterpipes, back from Bijapur in the Deccan. Asad Beg reported that tobacco was well known at Mecca and Medina and presented Akbar with a fine jewelled pipe with a mouthpiece of Yemeni carnelian. Although Akbar’s physician forbade him to smoke, the fashion for hookahs soon caught on and, as in Iran, various objects were adapted to hold the scented water through which the tobacco smoke passed. These included coconuts and various types of glass vessel, including bottles in which Dutch gin was exported, as well as spherical containers shaped like Indian waterpots [see MTW 1558]. These rested on rings or collars so that they stood upright. In addition, small hand-held hookah bases were made, some in the shape of mangoes or other fruit, or even in animal form and, as in this case, a dolphin.”

[lullabyes22-blog]

Mal de Mer - Ch: 5 - Deep End

Summary:

A high-seas honeymoon. Two adversaries, bound by matrimony. A future full of peril and possibility. And a word that neither enjoys adding to their lexicon: Compromise.

War was simpler business…

Part of the 'Forward But Never Forget/XOXO' AU. Can be read as a standalone series.

Thank you for the graphics @lipsticksandmolotovs<3

Mal de Mer on AO3

Mal de Mer on FFnet

CHAPTER

I - II - III - IV - V - VI - VII - VIII - IX - X

꧁꧂

Maybe you’re just like my mother? She’s never satisfied

~ "When Doves Cry" - Prince

The Hydra—newly dubbed the Thesaurus—boasts a mid-level lounge as well-appointed as anything on the SS Woe Betide.

The furnishings are tasteful: teak and polished brass, with Art Nouveau flourishes. Beneath frosted glass sconces, a bank of portholes offers a panoramic spectacle of the sea. The water is blood red; the sunset cuts sequins across the horizon. There's a bar, fully-stocked; a dining hall, austerely elegant, and a ballroom, the floor an expanse of shellacked hardwood. There is even a billiards table, tucked discreetly in the corner, and a few card tables, draped with damask.

Everything, Mel can't help but think, is to Silco's exacting standards.

After the 'demonstration' on the deck, Silco had escorted his guests—with all due solemnity—to the elevator. They'd ridden up to the main floor, then followed the maze of corridors until they'd reached the lounge. Now, the guests are being treated to what Mel has heard the Piltovan men-about-town call a Fete de Fissure—a heady mix of liquor and libertinage.

The crewmen, with impeccable hospitality, serve platters of Zaunite cuisine: braised octopus in red wine, grilled carp marinated in soy, and steamed lobsters served with a bed of brown rice cooked in garlic butter and herbs. There's even a spread of desserts: tiramisu and zabaglione, with a tower of macarons, all in the traditional neon colors that have even left their mark in Piltover's patisseries. Beverages run the gamut from Zaun's fizzy concoctions—the Blue Fairy, one of Jinx's coinages, is a notoriously potent knockout—to dark Fissure ales that taste of burnt caramel and sweetbread. The wine list, from Silco's own cellar, is a catalogue of rare vintages: the brandies are aged, the whiskies peaty, the cognacs smooth as velvet. For the discerning connoisseurs, there are also tobaccos: rolled leaves from the finest harvests, and cheroots hand-blended to match. And, for the adventurous, an assortment of narcotics: herbs, spices, and fungi that can be ingested or inhaled. Their effects are said to range from the mild euphoria of a cherry-flavored hookah puff to the hallucinations induced by a pipe of powdered mushrooms.

All, Mel notices, have been meticulously arranged by dosage, and labeled with instructions for use.

Looking closely, she spies no Shimmer. She wonders if the drug has been relegated for use only upon request. Or if, since Piltover’s embargo, Silco has truly stopped distributing his wares except as local medicinal supplies. 

She wonders what the shift will bode for Zaun. The city's economy, unlike Piltover's, has for years hinged on its export of the drug: aboveboard and under the table. Silco's two personas—the Chancellor with his acerbic wit, and the Eye of Zaun with his illicit wares—have never been separated by more than a few degrees.

Indeed, Zaun's penchant for lax rules and decadent spoils has long made it a favorite amongst the rich and restless. On the dark side of the allure are the deviants drawn to stories of midnight depravities: orgies on the waterfront, drug-fueled revels in the canals, and all the debauchery of a city that operates outside the boundaries of moral codes.

But the lighter side—the ordinary side—is the true spirit of Zaun. The people, Mel has found, are an eclectic blend: the industrious and the idle, the ambitious and the aimless. Within the warrens of stifling factory smoke and clanking chem-gears, they have created their own microcosm: a kaleidoscope of subcultures, all jostling and coexisting. The clerks who spend their weekdays in monochrome and drear as the no-nonsense backbone of Zaun's enterprise. The artists, drowsing by dawn, and livewires by nightfall: their magic woven, brushstroke by brushstroke, into the city's tapestry. The schemers, with their heads in the clouds and their feet in the dirt: all striving to make ends meet, and carve out their own slice of happiness.

The rest? Refugees escaping tyranny. Castaways flung out of the wreckage of their homes. Pilgrims in search of spiritual enlightenment.

Every stripe of humanity, under one banner.

Progress.

Mel, taking in the scene, realizes:

With the Iron Pearl, Zaun needn't rely on Shimmer to entice investment.

The city—by virtue of all its sweeter vices—is now the prize itself. 

The guests, Mel observes, are taking full advantage. The men have shed their frock coats, loosened ties, rolled up their sleeves. The women, too, are enjoying the evening's liberties: kicking off their heels, letting down their hair, and even unbuttoning the fronts of their blouses. All, succumbing to the liquor of adrenalized greed, have lost their masks of paper-thin civility.

Cevila, shiny-eyed and flushed from five glasses of brandy, is flirting with the stevedore, Kolt. Her husband, at the smoke bar, has already lost himself behind ripe clouds of smoke, and the riper curves of a giggling deckhand. Hector, chin-deep in a plateful of macarons, has transcended into a sugar-trance that verges on Zenlike. Garlen, at the card table, is nursing a tankard of ale, and squaring off against a group of swarthy-skinned sailors. His booming laugh, punctuated by Va-Nox expletives, shakes the room. Even Lady Dennings, her customary primness dissolved into a bottle of champagne, has ensconced herself by the fireplace, hair undone and feet propped on the ottoman. Her husband, of all people, has taken up the armchair opposite. He's been a stickler for formality all his life. Now, he is rubbing her feet. And, unless Mel's eyes are deceiving her, letting his hands roam higher and higher. Lady Dennings, rather than squealing in scandal, is purring like a cat in heat. When the duke leans in, and kisses her full on the mouth, she does not slap his face. Instead, she tugs him closer.

Soon, the two subside into a tangle of limbs behind the semi-privacy afforded by the curtains.

Perhaps, Mel thinks, red clover wasn't necessary.

She stands on the cantilevered terrace, a glass of limewater in hand.  A cool wind gusts, tousling her hair.  The stymied dread of the day is dissipating. In its wake, there is no relief. Only the soggy ache of nervous exhaustion. She feels the way she'd done in the aftermath of Ambessa's fencing lessons: woozy, and unable to trust her legs.  

Usually, her mind is a honed point, capable of cutting through the worst fog. Now, it is too dull to parse anything but the moment. The lines in the sand: blurred, erased, redrawn. The stakes: high as a cliff's edge. The fall: deadly real. And this: a liminal space of shifting currents, where all things are possible.

Mel fills her lungs with sea-salt.

Marriage, Ambessa always said, is not a leap of faith.

It is fine print, and hidden clauses, and a knife under the pillow.

Inside, the guests are drinking and dicing and dancing. The air is becoming fogged with tobacco, and the sharp tang of alcohol, and the heavier scent of bodies, heated, mingling, melting. All her guests—her chess pieces—plucked off the neat orderliness of her board and flung to the mercy of fate.

No—not fate.

Silco.

Headache throbs behind Mel's eyes. She wants either a good hard soul-cleansing scream or a stiff strong drink.

Sadly, both are off the table.

A shadow falls over her.

"You look tired."

Mel shivers involuntarily; her husband’s stealth never fails to unnerve her. His presence is a cold current, cutting through the haze. From her peripheral vision—a six-degree slice of awareness—she catches the silhouette: tall and spare, his movements liquid in the lamplight. A waft of his scent, citric with spice, blows across her.

Mel's respiration doesn't pick up. But her heartbeat does. Her voice comes steadier than she feels: "It's been a long day."

"And a trying week, I imagine."

"You needn't imagine." She takes a perfunctory sip. The limewater bites the back of her throat. "That was your intention, was it not? To put me through the wringer?"

"Only so far as it was necessary."

"Necessary?" A laugh, acrid, escapes her. "What is necessary is a matter of perspective. As is 'enough.'"

"Yet here you are."

His words are a dare: Look at me.

Mel doesn't turn. The wind in her hair is an insinuating touch. Silco's hand, she thinks, would be just as gentle. Just as possessive. She covers the thought with another sip. It goes down smoother.  She'll give him nothing to see, or to make use of, in his weblike calculations.

Not while the balance is still teetering.

"Here I am." Mel sets the glass down. "Waiting to be paid."

"For?"

"The performance in the gallery. For the guests."

"You're my wife, Mel. You need not be paid for such things."

"On the contrary. I am a Medarda. We demand our dues."

He doesn't speak, or sit. But nor is she rid of him. His presence is a tangible force. She feels it the way animals sense the sweltering build-up of a typhoon. Every sense attuned: the hairs on her nape bristling, the blood in her veins quickening, her muscles working beneath the skin. He is the deep end, and she must resist the temptation to be swallowed.

The temptation—if not the desire.

"I will not deny you your due." His voice drifts: slow, soft, so very near. "Ask me, and it is yours."

"I've asked already."

"Oh? Was there a clause I overlooked?"

"It was marriage."

The ice clinks emptily in her glass. She's drained the limewater. It hasn't helped.

"Mel." He is closer now. His warmth radiates in time to a rising heartbeat that threatens to tug Mel's attention away from truth. Her body, traitorous, yearns toward the source. "If it is gold you want, I will give you all of it. If it is jewels, I will mine them myself. If it is a palace, or a ship, or a throne—all you need do is say."

"It is not a question of material possessions. Nor is it a matter of my asking." For once, she is grateful for her Medarda bloodline. The dark riveted smoothness of her features gives nothing away. "I own enough treasures to bankrupt your coffers. As for a throne, I've already claimed mine. A city shining on the seas. None of that is what I want from you."

"What, then? A groveling apology? Me, on my knees?"

Mel's eyes fall shut. The anger fizzes into fuel. She clings to its small nourishment. All her will is bent toward remaining rooted where she is. To not surrendering.

"You're not sorry," she says bitterly.

"I am not."

"I don’t mean about the Idol. I meant: you’re not sorry about us. About this."

"If you think me indifferent—"

"I think you're a man who knows exactly what he wants." Her nails, ten manicured half-moons, bite into her palms. She imagines, with a dark pleasure, his flesh shredded. "I think you'd have burned every bridge and sold your own soul to make the Iron Pearl a reality."

"All true."

"What you did not take into account was me."

"Mel—"

"You said it yourself. I'm the variable you cannot predict. You can't intimidate me like your subordinates. Nor gull me with profit, like our guests. I'm not Sevika, so you can't rely on me to take the fall. And I'm not Jinx, so you can't trust me to know the entire truth." Her throat seizes. "I'm only the leverage you needed for your city. And so, I'm the one whose hand you'll hold. Even if there's a knife hidden in the other."

"That is not how I see you."

"Tell me, then."

"Look at me."

"No."

"Mel."

"No." The sunset, a huge red disc, burns without heat. Bright pinpricks burst behind her lids. "Why should I look at you, when I know what I'll see? The same expression, when you told me Zaun would've been stronger if you'd chosen someone else. That your life, and your ambition, and your purpose would've been simpler."

"I do not regret the decision."

"Because it was the one that served you."

"Because you're what I want."

This jabs the raw space between Mel's ribs.

"You'll never know," he goes on, "what it to grow up with nothing. I don't mean the nothing of a loveless childhood, or an empty home. I mean the nothing of a soul's bottomlessness. Of having so little, the only way to survive is to sink your teeth into whatever scraps you can.  And there is no way out—no way out—save clawing yourself up to the light. Even if the price is sellin' a piece of yourself with each rung." The grit of the Lanes roughens his accent. "Until there's nothing left. Until all that keeps you going is the promise of a world where your children—and their children—will never have to lose what you've lost. That is why I do what I do, Mel. I don't give a shit about the rest."

The sea stretches out before Mel. The horizon is the thin red streak of a slit throat. Behind her, Silco's breathing is the same.

The cadence of a man readying to spill every drop.

"You, Mel..." It is a whisper. "You are not the rest. Sometimes, I look at you, and I think you are the end. Mine, or my life's, I cannot say. "

The tears sting. Mel does not let them fall. She holds them, and him, at bay.

"You hate it," she says. "That I can do this to you. Make you want what you'd been denied a lifetime—and not have to fight to take it."

"I hate," he says, "that I cannot trust myself around you."

Mel feels him edge closer. A wall of heat. His sigh stirs the fine hairs by her temple.

"I hate," he goes on, "that each time I've drawn a bead on you, I've missed the mark by a mile. I hate that, every time, I find a new side of you. A side I had not known, because I hadn't considered to look. I hate that each time I learn something new, it is not a pit that keeps on opening—it is the sun, and I have no choice but to let it blind me." His voice drops hoarsely. "You are a Medarda. I expected fire, and the cunning to use it. I found steel. I expected ambition, and the ruthlessness to wield it. I found empathy. I expected a woman high on her own worth, and not above rubbing my face in it. I found a woman who cares enough to sacrifice her worth for everything."

Mel's hands tremble on the balustrade. A mist of dampness chills her cheeks.

Sea-water, or tears?

"You're saying," she says, "you found the perfect pawn."

"Not a pawn. A dreamer. One who is not afraid to wager all, on the belief that there is something better." His proximity seeps in: a slow bleed. "You expected something from a man who had nothing to offer. My city's assets; a fraction of yours. My good name; the promise of yours. You chose a gamble, knowing it was a losing bet. And you played it, anyway."

"So: a pawn."

"So: a queen. Who knows how to change everything, with a single move."  Two fingertips alight on the small of her back. "You planned this voyage, with the best intentions, and the finest strategy. You played your games and wove your wiles to give my city a chance. And when it all went to hell—you chose to stay. On the ship, you took my side over the guests. In the gallery, you backed my play. In the face of raging seas, you were the bridge." His shadow, cast against the sunset, engulfs hers. "Could be the harbor… if you trust me."

"I cannot trust you," Mel whispers, "when you refuse the same."

"There are things I cannot share, Mel. Not yet. Plans that, if mislaid, could undo everything."

"Excuses."

"Truth." The two fingertips encompass into a palm, warm and heavy. "Give it time."

"How much time?"

"Enough." His touch trails up, leaving a circuit of sparks. "Too late, and it goes up in smoke. Too soon, and I cannot bear the cost."  Softly, "Not to you, Mel."

The sunset drips into the sea: livid crimson. Mel's grip tightens on the rail. 

The tears are not gathering. Only the rage. A single gesture is not salve. A sweet confession, no substitute for the truth. And Mel—she knows, even now, that he is hiding something. The thought is a wound, bleeding anew. All her anger, and hurt, and shame: it funnels into the shape of him. She imagines strangling him with her bare hands. Imagines the pulse beating beneath her fingertips. Imagines the warmth and the solidity of his body.

She'll tear him apart—or stitch herself back whole. She'll kill him, or kiss him. She'll have him, or have done.

But the choice, whatever else, will be hers.

Then her imaginings aren't imaginary. He is there. His arms, encompassing her, are an unyielding circle. The heat of him is everywhere. The scent of him, too: bergamot, spice, smoke.

His lips touch the nape of her neck. Right where her vertebrae are the most vulnerable

And Mel, though she'd deny it, is shivering.

"I will give you," he says, "what I can. Not everything. Not yet. But soon."

"Even if, in the end, it comes to nothing?"

The tip of his nose ghosts up her spine, until his mouth is at her ear. "It won't."

"How can you know?"

"Because I will do whatever is necessary to make it possible." His breath tickles the whorl of her ear. "Because I have not fought this hard, and this long, to lose you."

"Your prized chess-piece."

"My wife."

Mel's shiver intensifies. The way his tongue curls around the word is pure possession. But the span of arms is no cage. It is a shelter: solid, steady, sure. His palms meet hers on the railing. Their fingers interlace. The warmth is a tide lapping her skin.

Fusing, like gold, into the cracks.

And Mel is not immune to gold—though she wishes she were. She is tired, hurting, and tired from trying to hide the hurt. Trying, on one plane or another, to prove herself. To the world; to her peers; to her mother. 

To the man who strips her to the barest nerve and lays her raw.

"I will not regret deceiving you to enrich my city," he whispers. "Nor will I regret the things I did to bring us to this moment. But I do regret the distress you've borne. I regret the doubts held, and fears endured. I regret they were so many, they turned your honeymoon into a sickbed." He kisses the tip of her ear. "If I had known how fragile you were—I would have done better by you."

"I'm not—"

The word nearly breaks past her lips. The tears, too. But her pride will not allow her.

Not after a lifetime of Ambessa Medarda's tutelage: a Medarda's worth is a sum of her strength.

"I'm not fragile," she repeats, though her pitch quavers. "I've never been fragile. Never been—"

"Anything other than yourself. I know." His voice is the softest it has been so far. "I mean no insult. You Medardas love to style yourselves as gods. But gods don't bleed. They don't rage. They don't starve, or steal, or scheme. They are like the gold your family loves to hoard: untouchable."  He moves her hands with his, their fingers twined, and knits them over her belly. Practically molding them to her womb. "I've no use for gods, Mel. But I've a great deal of use for you."

"How comforting."

"You didn't choose me for comfort. And I didn't choose you for complacence. We chose, because we each push the other to dare. To reach beyond ourselves." His lips drop a kiss on the pulse beating under her jaw. It is so ghostly it might not be there at all. And yet, Mel can feel her spine arch. "Your ambition is a reflection of my own. And the rest of you: a mirror of all I lack. So, no. I am not sorry.  Not for choosing you, nor for what's happened." Softly, "Not when it's led to us."

The sunset, a dying red eye, blinks out.

Suddenly, everything is melting. Mel is not sure if the salt in her mouth is limewater or tears. With all her strength, she swallows them down. A single slip, and she is lost. Her poise will splinter, and she will collapse into his arms. She longs and loathes for it in equal measure; dreading what will be there for him to see, and for her to feel.

The tears, though, are not the worst.

"Petal," he says—and she is turning.

In the fading light, Silco's features, rather than washing pale, take on an olive-toned burnish. Had he been smiling, she would have split his skull open with her fist. Had his eyes radiated that uncanny gleam of hazard, she'd have fought the hypnosis with all her might.

Instead, he looks the way he had, in the wake of their first time together: somber, soft-eyed, a little unsure. His eyes, in the twilight, are the color, not of ice and fire, but mulled wine, and a heart's bluest longing. It was that look that, in a glimpse, had fascinated her so. The look that had, even then, seemed too human to belong to a monster.  

The tears—a treacherous sheen—delineate him in gold.

"Don't," she rasps. "Don't say another word."

"Mel—"

"Please." Her fingers lift to his mouth. They are trembling. But so, she realizes, are his lips. "Not tonight. Not while they're here." She pushes, with what's left of her will, to keep the space between them. It's a danger zone. All the more so because he isn't pushing back. "When we're on the island. In the villa. I'll have it all from you. Everything you've promised. You'll lay it all at my feet and let me sift through it. But not now. Not here." She draws a breath. "Not while I'm still..."

"Still what?"

"Wishing you'd said something else." She lets her fingers fall away. "The right thing. At the right time."

"Petal—"

"Don't." Her eyes spear him through damp lashes. "Just kiss me. Kiss me, and tell me it will be better. Tell me the sun will rise tomorrow. That I will make it so."

"You will."

"Make me believe it."

"You already do." His lips find her forehead. Then her eyelids, closed and beaded in salt. The touch is so fleeting it might not have been there at all, except his fingertips are deliberately tracing their way down her nape, tipping her head up to touch his mouth to hers. "Believe that, too."

The kiss fills her with the taste of him: smoke and spice and seasalt. It seeks all the secrets inside her. All the deepest places he's been. All the places she can no longer hide alone. Kissing him is not like kissing Jayce: alluring dips into a warm, sweetly willing mouth and a smooth, firm, unflawed body. Kissing Silco is like taking a running dive into black waters: all risk, and pure thrill.

And yet, slipping beneath the surface, there is no pain. Only the throbbing depth of need.

Mel’s spine unspools under his palm. In a slow unfurling, her body melts against his, and his arms come around her, and the night closes in.

The kiss breaks for air; her cheeks are wetly streaked. But it's all right, because his face, too, is wet with them. In the ebbing glow, she can dare to think of it as rain: the storm's first gift. Dare to think he's not so remote: that, despite the distance of so much swallowed between them, she can still reach him.

That he can keep her afloat.

"Again," she breathes. "Kiss me again."

He does, palm seizing the back of her neck and pulling her in. Their mouths open wider, and she feels the slick heat of his tongue and the serrated row of his teeth, and the rough reams of the scar-tissue on his cheek. With other men, she could close her eyes and imagine them as anyone. They were blank canvases, waiting for her to fill them with her own flights of fancy.

Silco is no fancy.

He's a knife in the dark: each detail etched with excruciating precision. There is no erasing the topography of his scars. His hands: scored with the calluses of rough labor. His skin: scoured with past misdeeds. His heart: a black-powder keg, ready to ignite. The darkness that lives within him: surging, smoldering, seething.

And his tenderness of is tenfold more terrifying.

"You'll be the sun tomorrow," he breathes. "You always are."

"Silco..."

"It's true." His mouth is a scald; love-biting down the curve of her throat. "Even now, when it's night, and I can't see the sky. Even then, I know you're still there."

Mel shivers. She can't stop her body from flowing into the embrace. Can't stop the small moan rising in her throat, or the palm lifting to thread its fingers into his hair. Can't stop her other hand, the one that had been so sure on the railing, from sleeking down the front of his waistcoat to hook shakily into the waistband of his trousers. 

She can't stop anything. Her body has already chosen.

And the rest of her: doomed to follow suit.

"Come with me," he rasps. "I've a room belowdeck."

"The guests—"

"Too busy getting high. Or getting themselves off." 

"But—"

"There is a bed, petal. It has fresh sheets. Goosedown pillows. A silk duvet." His thumb smooths her brow, sweeping a wayward curl from her face. "Unless you'd rather have them bear witness."

Mel's face heats. She'd forgotten her guests are only a glass away. All their carousing, and curses, and calls. Through the parallelogram of light spilling from the doorway, she glimpses hazy silhouettes. Someone has put an old Jazz record on the phonograph.  Cevila is doing an exuberant reel with Kolt. Hector is slumped, chin-deep, in an empty dish of macarons. Garlen has hauled a pretty girl—one of the deckhands—onto his lap. His mouth, smeared in the rouge from her lipstick, is open with laughter at something she's whispering in his ear. The Dennings, behind their curtains, are still tangled in a love-knot. But the chaise is rocking in an unmistakable percussive rhythm.

Mel's burn deepens. "I'm not having my guests walk in on us."

"And I've no interest in giving them a show." His smile cuts wickedly against her skin. "Unless I charge per head."

Mel's tongue touches her top lip. She can still taste him, and the promise of more. Her body, fuddled by desire, is throbbing with a dull insistence. Her headache is far-off. The fatigue, too, has melted into one long exhalation of release that is its own build-up of tension.

He is so close their foreheads touch. Her eyelashes, damp, catch on his skin as she shakes her head.

"No."

"No?"

"Not here." Her eyes lift to his. "And not on the ship."

"Then where?"

"In the villa. In the master suite. I want a proper honeymoon. Everything I planned for, before you derailed my life." Her voice trembles; her fingers tighten on his waistband, tugging him closer. "I want you to carry me over the threshold. I want to wake up in the morning and find you next to me. I want a breakfast tray in bed, and a day spent lazing on the beach. I want the sun in my hair, and sand between my toes, and you in the water, showing me that backstroke you're always bragging about. And in the evening, I want a candlelit supper. A long walk on the shore, as the stars come out. And after—" Her voice husks. "After, I want every last inch of you. With the door shut and the world outside. I want to know what 'us' means to you, and why I'm the one you chose. I want it all. Everything."

His face is still. Only his eyes—their pupils blown wide, one haloed in pure green, the other ringed by a rim of fire—give him away.

"A fortnight," he says.

"Yes."

"In the villa."

"Yes."

"With the door shut."

"Yes."

"Romance, and the sea, and the stars."

"Yes."

His fingers are threading her curls. The rhythm of his breath is a steady metronome. But his heartbeat, she can feel, is climbing. "And me, every inch."

"Yes."

"Every. Inch."

"Yes, damn you." 

The hand, at the back of her neck, begins to knead: slow, languorous, and so very warm.  Mel’s resolve threatens to liquify. But there is a stubbornness to her that won't yield. The golden core that had kept her from falling at Jayce's feet, or letting Ambessa dictate the course of her life, or letting her bloodline shape the path of her city.

The stubbornness that, no matter how hard the world kicked her down, has always kept her standing.

"Yes," she repeats, tipping her chin, "to all of it. All the things we'd have, if not for all this." She gestures: the chaos within, and the chaos without. "Two weeks, and I'll have everything from you. I'll know your measure, as a husband. You will give me every iota of your attention, and more. And you will give it all willingly."

The corner of his scarred lip holds the barest upturn. "You drive a hard bargain."

"I am a Medarda."

"You are, indeed."  The kneading of his long fingers has become a long tender caress, from the juncture of her skull down the wings of shoulderblades to the dip of her spine, then up again. The touch is so lulling that Mel sways to its rhythm. "But, Mel?"

"Mmm?"

"You could, at least, let me escort you belowdeck, and out of that dreadful damp tulle. I'll be the soul of propriety. And if, along the way, I manage to coax the rest of those knots from your shoulders, you'll be a better woman for it. And I, a happier man."

A delicious ripple runs from the tips of her fingers to her toes. His timbre holds that distinctive gravel—smoke-charred and slow-rolling—that is a matchstrike to her senses. It is, she suspects, the tone he'd use to tempt the devil himself into sin.

But a Medarda is a harder sell.

"A generous offer." She steps back. "But no."

"No?"

"You'll have to plead your case with more ingenuity."

In the dark, his smile is a white knife-flick. "It was worth a try."

"Was I?"

With a languid, nearly wistful slowness, he tugs her in. Her chin is tipped up; his mouth descends. The kiss is nearly obscene in its thoroughness. His tongue: chasing into her mouth. His teeth, claiming her bottom lip. His hands: roaming her body. Mel's sigh, trapped between their mouths, is mortifyingly eloquent.

By the time the kiss breaks, she is panting. So is he. The wind has turned. Salt-spray gusts across the terrace. The twilight is ripe with a brewing storm. In the gloaming, Silco's silhouette is of a piece with the sea: dark, long, and unyielding. His lips, glistening, are stained with her lipstick and the last vestiges of her control.

"Oh, treasure," he breathes. "Get inside—before I give ‘em a show they’ll never forget."

 And Mel, adept at reading between the lines, knows this round hers.

"You’d have," she says, letting her smile spread, "to beg."

"I don't beg."

Rising on tiptoes to approximate his height, Mel balances herself with one palm on his shoulder. With the other, she cups the back of his neck, and guides his head down to her level. Lips touching his, she breathes, "Not yet."

A growl vibrates his chest. The challenge has hit its mark.

Nuzzling his lips with hers, Mel pulls away. She does so, with a tantalizing slowness, keeping the contact between their bodies until his breathing has roughened and his hands flex at his sides. The last bit, her breasts sliding past his ribs, is the cruelest. But she'll be crueler still: backing away, one step, then two, until only her eyes remain, a glitter of amber-green promise.

Then she glides off.

"Come," she calls over her shoulder, "before the rain does."

Silco’s eyes, burning, follow her. Then the rest of him: soundless as the tide.

Always, inexorably, giving chase.

By nightfall, the storm is blowing in: a great billowing mass. Lightning flashes. Thunder booms. Wind rattles the windows.

Inside, the revelers are restless.

The smoky air, in colors of lucine jade and blood opal, is heady with leftover tobacco, spilled spirits, and sweat.  They've been treated to the full spectrum of Zaunite hospitality: a superabundance of dissipated delights. Now they are eager to bypass the evening's foreplay for a future of full-bodied indulgence.

All within their reach, if they choose to invest in the Iron Pearl.

Cevila, her face pinked from heat and drink, is already discussing a potential trade bargain with her husband. Hector, his mouth ringed with sugary crumbs, is attempting the buttonhole Kolt for a partnership deal.  Even the Dennings, their lovemaking session sated and a glow to their skins, are huddled together, speaking in low voices that are more conspiratorial than amorous. 

Apart from the six, Mel can hear the others: muttering, speculating, planning. There is an atmosphere not unlike that of a wedding reception: everyone tipsy on scandal, the newlyweds' bed made, and the night yet to be.

Mel wonders if she ought to feel guilty.

They are, none of them, innocents. Each one has had a hand in enriching themselves at Zaun's expense. Now, they are being offered a chance at redemption—to reverse old wrongs and build a new future. Except it's not themselves they are redeeming. Their motives remain the same: craven to the core, with deep pockets and open palms ready to seize whatever is in reach.

And the Zaunites who will benefit from their investments? Their future, and their well-being, is only a fringe benefit.

Goodness, as Ambessa's favorite adage was, is not the lifeblood that fuels the world.

It is greed.

Mel wonders what Ambessa will make of Silco's gamble. She wonders, too, what measures Silco had taken to ensure a winning hand. A gambit as dangerous as this necessitates an ace or two up the sleeve. Only time—or disaster—will tell what shape it takes.

Mel cannot let her thoughts be consumed with the question. That way, she knows, lies madness. Still, she cannot help but wish that her honeymoon could've been simpler.

Simple is not Silco's métier.

Sitting by the alcove, he surveys the guests. His profile is carved against the backdrop of the storm: jagged forks of lightning, and incandescent thunderheads. His expression, as usual, is impassable. Then a deckhand flags him. They confer in low tones.

Mel cannot see the man's face. But she recognizes the posture. The rigid line of his spine, the arms crossed behind his back, the square, wide-legged stance.

A soldier, at ease. And Silco, his general.

Just like Ambessa.

It is a stark reminder that the man right now is not simply her husband. He is the Eye of Zaun, and his ambitions are his own. He has not promised to share them, or his methods, or the plans he has laid in their name. Nor is it any use to ask.

She will not get an answer. Not until she's earned it.

 A heavy hand lands on her shoulder. "Well?"

Mel is jarred from her reverie. "Yes?"

Garlen is a hulking mass. His expression is difficult to read in the low light. But the reek of liquor, mingling with stale cologne and a hint of something else—a woman's scent, musky, and the faint, sharp tang of sex—is off-putting. He must have gotten lucky with the pretty deckhand from earlier.

"Well," he repeats, "When do we talk business, your husband and me? Real business." 

"At the villa, Sir Garlen, there will be time to talk at length."

"And how're we getting there? The storm's set in." He grins, teeth delineated in brown from tobacco. "Don't want the Eye's guests, especially the bride, getting soaked, eh?"

 The innuendo, all slurred vowels, is not lost on Mel. She keeps her smile fixed

"My husband has planned ahead. Indeed, he's anticipated our every need."

"Yeah? How about his, then? You take care of those yet?"

His grin has gone oily.  He must, Mel realizes, have glimpsed her and Silco together on the terrace.

Inwardly, she curses. The lax environs of the Thesaurus, formalities lost in a tide of adrenaline, have caught her off-guard. The shock of Silco's confession took care of the rest. Everything—even her own guests—had been pushed to the edges of her mind.  It's an error she'd never have allowed in a different context.

An exposure—reckless, costly—she'd never have let slide.

Her allure is the most effective weapon in her repertoire. And allure, by virtue of its nature, is remote. To allow herself to be glimpsed as a woman, in all her vulnerability, is to invite unwanted overtures. One the opportunists will leap upon, no matter how high her station or her guard.

A drop of blood, Ambessa always warned, is all they need.

Garlen, in his cups, has sniffed more than a drop. Now he is salivating for his share.

Coolly, she says, "Sir Garlen, you are being far too familiar."

"Oh, am I?" His thick fingers knead into her shoulder. "A moment ago, you were all smiles."

"A moment ago, we were discussing business."

"What's the difference?" He leans closer. "Tell me. Did General Medarda wed you off to that weasel for the Pearl? Because that would explain a few things."

No innuendo this time. Only implication thick as the fumes on his breath.

The implication being: Whore.

"General Medarda," Mel says, sweetly, "would have you flayed for less."

"I'd like to see her try."

"I think you'd find the experience quite unpleasant." 

"So, what: you're gonna be the one to do the honors?" His greasy stare slithers down her body. "Maybe show me a good time, while you're at it."

Across the room, Cevila's laugh, high and merry, cuts through the din. Kolt, a little drunk, is spinning her around the dance floor, the two of them tripping on their feet. Hector, slumped in the corner booth, is fast asleep. The Dennings are still whispering, heads bowed together.

The other guests, too, are turned away. All lost in their own little worlds.

Except Silco.

Mel can feel his gaze. Dark. Heavy. Implacable. A heatwave prickles her nape. Except it is not her he is looking at. It is the man: the hulking Noxian, the thick fingers, the oily grin. Jayce, Mel thinks, would have pounded Garlen into the deck by now. A matter of decency; diplomacy be damned. A lady's honor, he would say, must be defended.

Zaunites don't share the same code.

Their version of honor, Mel knows, is to deal with the offense yourself.

"Sir Garlen," she says, with a voice of cultured silk. "If you wish to keep those fingers, you'll remove them."

"Or what?" The grip clamps down. "You'll tell the Eye on me?"

"Oh, I'll do better than that."

"Yeah?"

"I'll cut them off myself."

Garlen's leer freezes. "What the fuck did you say?"

"You heard me, Sir Garlen. Your fingers. The ones on my shoulder." Mel's eyes lock. The smile melts. Her tone, though level, is sharpened to steel. "I'll still leave you enough to write your name with. Or to sign whatever contract I require. But not much else. We won't need the rest."

Garlen's nostrils flare. The fingers squeeze hard enough to bruise. "Bitch—"

"Do not speak. Or that tongue will be next." Mel lifts a hand, peeling off his fingers one by one. "I'll tell you this, so listen well. You've been very stupid today, Sir Garlen. Drunk on a bit of luck, and forgetful of your manners. So, let me remind you: you are here at my discretion. Not the Eye's. And once my discretion is breached, even the best investment make will not buy back the respect you've forfeited. My mother has her way of dealing with insults. I have mine. If you'd like to avoid either, you will stop now, and remember your place."

Garlen's mouth is working. "You—"

"And," Mel cuts him off, "I will give you one last warning. If you lay another finger on me, or even look at me, in any manner I don't approve of, you will be leaving here minus your legs. Do you understand?"

Garlen's expression is a study in incredulity. He'd expected an easy mark. A soft touch, pliant and pretty. He'd gotten a Medarda. And the fact he didn't expect a Medarda means he knows nothing. Not about Mel, nor her family, nor her city.

"If you’ll excuse me," Mel purrs, letting his fingers fall. "I'd like a word with my husband."

Garlen, his face mottled red, withdraws. Mel glides forward.

Across the room, Silco's stare stays on her. No sign of a smile. But the good eye crinkles at the corner.  Mel can sense his satisfaction. He'd never intervene into her turf unless she needed him to. But nor will he deny himself the pleasure of witnessing her at her fiercest.

At her approach, he tips his chin. "All right?"

"Never better." Mel, serenely, takes her place at his side. "But I am curious."

"About?"

"Our return." She inclines her chin toward the window: the rain, lashing with mad fury against the glass. "Sir Garlen, and no doubt the rest, are eager to reach the villa. Begin ironing out the details."

"As are you."

She levels her most innocent gaze. "And if I were?"

"I'd counsel you to hold your horses."

"Does a hard wet ride leave them so afrit?"

Now he is very pleased. She can tell by the curl of his lip. "I can't answer for your guests. But mine aren't the ones who should be scared."

"Then whose?"

"Whomst."

"That's not a proper word."

"Jinx uses it all the time."

"I rest my case."

"We left rest behind hours ago." The scudding clouds throw his features into harsh relief. His jaw, shadowed with the first hint of stubble, is the hue of tarnished silver. It is the only sign of the day's passage: the rest of him is impeccable, as though he'd spent the afternoon idling in an armchair, rather than wrestling with wind and waves and her. "Though, if we're playing the grammar game, it's 'frit', not 'afrit.'"

"You're avoiding the question."

"Not avoiding. Anticipating." The curl deepens. "The rain will not be the problem. Not with our mode of transport."

"Which is?"

"The Idol."

Mel's humor slips. "What do you mean?"

"When you arrived, you asked me to show you the way out. I did. It's down in the gallery. The hourglass."

Mel's understanding gives way to dread. "Silco, tell me you're not considering—"

"I am."

"No."

"It's the best solution. The seas are too rough for sailing. Especially when carrying full-bellied cargo. And the Woe Betide was instructed to haul anchor by late afternoon. By now, she's already sailed. My informants have received word that she's docked at the Wuju port. The Captain is quite perplexed as to where we've vanished. I'd rather not keep him in distress much longer. Else he'll summon the coast guard."

A thundercloud gathers on Mel's brow. "Why not send word that we'll sail to Wuju by tomorrow?"

"Too risky. The storm's forecasted to persist well into next evening. And it wouldn't do for a wider net of strangers to know the Thesaurus' whereabouts.  If our radio signals are intercepted, the wrong people could learn of its location before the time is right." His thumb touches her temple, smoothing the thundercloud away. "You'll have your honeymoon. It's just a change of plans, that's all."

"Change of plans."

"Yes."

"Namely a relic from the Void."

He smiles now, without pretense. "It's a portal. No different from the Hex-Gates."

"That's different."

"Different, how?"

She glances furtively over her shoulder. Her guests are oblivious. "Hex-Gates operate on the same plane. The physical world as we perceive it. The Void—"

"—is a realm beyond ours. I know. But, so is the sea, or the sky. We'll take a quick plunge, and come out on the other side. There's a glyph near the islet, and my network have established a dry dock close to the island. The storm won't follow us through. We'll take a rowboat ashore. Be safe dry and at the villa before the night's done. In time, I daresay, for a late supper."

"What's the catch?"

"No catch. Just the practicalities. Stay close, and don't succumb."

"You make it sound as if we're sailing past sirens on the rocks."

"That's a fair comparison."

"Silco—"

He lays one cool finger on her lips.

"I promise no risk." His mismatched eyes are sea and storm. "Not to you."

His hand has dropped. Hers has lifted, reaching for his face. Mel catches herself, lacing her fingers, with forcible self-possession, against her belly. She will not let him see her unease. She is a Medarda, and Medardas thrive in risk. She'd backed Jayce's reckless play to the bitter end. Had sampled, without apology, the splendors that came of its success. She will, and can, do the same again.

Except now, it's not simply her skin on the line.

"All—all right," she says, at length.

"Yes?"

"Yes. Though I warn you: the Dennings are in the throes of afterglow, and won't care. But the others..." She lets her gaze linger on each. "I'll have to work them. Make sure they're not too afraid to step inside."

"Do you think you can manage?"

Mel squares her shoulders. The storm is gathering, and so is her resolve.

"Have you forgotten whom you are married to?"

His smile waxes full. Taking her hand, he drops a kiss onto her knuckles, right on the cold stone of her wedding ring. It warms beneath his lips. "If it isn't too much trouble,” he murmurs, “could you persuade them to leave the liquor behind? A bit of sobriety will serve us better in the Void. It's an odd place. I'd rather they be sharp-eyed for the journey."

"There's nothing sharp about them," Mel sighs. "Sir Garlen, for one, is too far gone."

"Coffee, then. Enough to perk up the dead."

A grim smile flits across her lips. "Consider it done."

"Good." He closes the space between them, "And I'll deal with Garlen."

"What?"

Silco is already detaching. "Concentrate on the others. When you're ready, we'll depart."

"Silco—"

His two-toned eyes glitter. "You did warn him. Now I'll give him my own reminder."

The air, at once, is electric. It has nothing to do with the storm. It is only them: the space between their bodies and the rapprochement of sovereign spheres. Garlen may be Mel's guest. But this is Silco's turf. And he will not stand by the sidelines while she is impugned within its walls. 

"Silco," Mel tries again. "You don't have to—"

Except he is gone: a dark shape, slipping from shadow to shadow. In a trice, he's reached Garlen, and laid a hand on his shoulder. Mel does not catch the words exchanged. But in a moment, Silco has begun steering Garlen toward the exit.

A handful of crewmen, summoned out of nowhere, converge in his wake.

The storm vastness seems to fill the lounge—the atmosphere crackling—to follow their passage. The remaining guests remain talking amongst themselves. No one has noticed the interlude. They are too preoccupied with their own interests.

The door swings shut.

Mel, stranded in the lounge, is left to work her wiles.

While her husband, belowdeck, settles the accounts.

It is touch-and-go.

The Dennings are easy. Having had their fill of wine and food, they are eager only for a locked bedroom and the privacy to enjoy it. Hector, roused from stupor, is no more difficult: a passing mention of the local sweetmeats he'll get to sample once they've arrived at the villa is enough to pique his interest. Cevila, a tougher nut, balks at the thought of stepping into the Void, until Mel manages to coax her and her husband, in the spirit of adventure, to reconsider.

The crewmen begin, with utmost politeness, corralling the guests. Life-vests are fitted back on; coats are slung over shoulders. It's a far cry from the way they'd been manhandled, en masse, from the SS We Betide, and deposited into the Thesaurus.

But then, they weren't high-profile investors. Only cargo.

Now, they're assets.

The guests are ushered back belowdecks. Mel follows, making sure everyone is accounted for. The gallery, after the bluster of the storm, is eerily tranquil. A preternatural chill dwells in the subaquatic space. The Idol is a pulsar, beating its rhythm in time with the sea.

A shiver runs down Mel's spine. Her dress, the tulle long since soaked through, clings to her limbs. She ought to have taken up Silco's offer and changed into something dry. But the moment's gone. Now, the only thing to do is press forward.

Into the dark, where the Eye awaits.

The hourglass, ultramarine, glows behind Silco. His silhouette bisects the radiance; staring straight at it, Mel has the impression of taking in a signpost at the fabric of reality. She is reminded of the moment she'd first met him, in the brightness of the arterial-red sunlight. A monster from a nightmare, and a nightmare all his own. The nightmare who'd been revealed, in the end, to have a man's face, and a man's voice, and a man's dreams.

 Mel, gathering her courage, approaches.

"Where," she whispers, "is Garlen?"

"He'll be along,” Silco says. “All ready, then?"

Hesitating, Mel nods.

Behind her, the guests are a shuffling mass. In the engulfing gloom, their voices have died; they are huddled together, nearly as wary as when they'd first set foot in the gallery. Some are shivering, and not from the cold. Others are glancing anxiously around, as though expecting the Void to manifest and swallow them whole. Only a few—Cevila, the Dennings, and, surprisingly, Hector—keep their gazes fixed on the glowing hourglass, braced despite the dread.

Mel struggles to find her own sealegs. "We're ready."

"Then let's not waste time." His eyes pass from Mel to the guests. The softness of his voice holds a subaudible pitch that seeps directly into every cell, and leaves no room for disobedience. "You'll find the trip quite painless.  To minimize mishaps, Kolt will be accompanying us. The after-effects, while harmless, can be quite unsettling. And, for such precious cargo," the barest sidelong glance at Mel, "I'd rather not take chances."

The guests stir. The murmur of a dozen mouths disturbs the airwaves.

"I ask that you keep your life-vests on. It will make the plunge smoother. And, when we reach the other side, refrain from making any sudden moves. Like a flashbulb going off, after-images will linger. Pay them no heed. They will fade. Reality—our reality—will set in."

A fresh wave of mutters, tinged by disquiet.

"What," Hector dares, with a faux-jovial smile, "if reality fails to make an appearance?"

"It will."  Silco's mouth crooks. "If you would do me the honor of following my lead, I assure you the crossing-over will be without incident."

"How," Lady Dennings asks, "does one cross over?"

"Like this."

Silco, with a slow-motion fluidity, approaches the hourglass. The bottom chamber's gates are open: the sand, hovering a half-inch above the base, is suspended in a state of infinite fall. Each tiny grain seems lit from within: an iridescent crystal. Unknotting his cravat, Silco holds up the white strip of cloth lengthwise between his hands. A magician demonstrating a prop before the trick.

"Watch," he murmurs, and drops the cloth.

It flutters, a pale pennant, into the chamber.  As the fabric descends, the grains swirl, coalescing into a whirlpool that engulfs the silk. At the dais, the Idol glows, pulsing at a steady rhythm. Ultraviolet, then magenta, then red. The colors bleed together, until all Mel can see is an inchoate rainbow that seeps into every sense.

The air comes alive with a strange sonorous hum. It spikes into a crescendo that drowns out every sound.

A blink later, the cravat vanishes.

Silco, in the expanding silence, tips his chin.

"Simple as that."

The guests stare in shock.

"But the cloth—" Lord Dennings sputters.

"Floating its way across the winds of Wuju. Our destination—though not, as it turns out, Sir Garlen’s."

With a look of mute dispassion, he meets the eye of a crewman. A single nod is given. Cued, the crewman opens the door to a storage cabinet. From inside, Sir Garlen is hoisted out, supported under the arms by two burly men. In the cascading blueness of the gallery, his skin is a pallid gray. The whites of his eyes seem a rheumy, bloodshot.

A gash bisects in his temple.

"Sir Garlen," Silco says, without inflection, "has made a last-minute change of plans."

Garlen, head swaying on the gyre of his thick neck, makes no answer.

"He will be joining his comrades on the Noxian outpost at Urvash. He's had his fill of refined company, and is looking forward to, shall we say, the coarser pleasures of the war-campaign. Isn't that right, Sir Garlen?"

 Garlen's throat works in a peristaltic flex. Nothing comes out.

 Mel, with a slow creep of horror, realizes he's been drugged.

"Silco," she says. "What—what have you—?"

"Something to calm him down. He had a bit of a row with my crew. They had to take precautions. The effects will wear off by the time he reaches his destination." Silco's attention shifts back to the hourglass. "Which is, in any case, better than getting tossed into the storm."

The blood in Mel's skull recedes, leaving her lightheaded. "Why did you—?"

"He made advances." Silco's stare locks on hers: unrepentant. "On the hostess."

"That doesn't mean—"

"I'm aware. But the matter is settled. Sir Garlen has changed his mind, and will be his own way." His focus goes to the remaining guests. "The rest of you are, of course, free to take your leave with him. Or, as planned, we can go together to the villa. Discuss our future, and its promise. Because it is that promise that will build the foundations for the new age. One where we may all, shoulder to shoulder, do our cities a profitable service. And, perhaps, carve out a lasting peace."

The guests are breathing heavily. It is not the drugs, or the dark, or the danger that holds them hostage.

It is the man.

His words, sluicing gently from the shadows, are a warning. The old status quo is done. The new order is a beast rising from the depths. Their insults and insolences will no longer be tolerated. Their old privileges are forfeit.  They'd crossed the sea as Mel's guests; they depart as the Eye's allies.  And the price of his allyship is the same as the price of his enmity:

Loyalty.

Mel tastes the fear souring the air. Her language of diplomacy, of elegant solutions and calculated compromise, has no place here.  And yet she herself has not been relegated to the sideline. She can feel Silco's attention on her, holding her to account.

My wife, he'd said—and now she understands.

In offering his hand, he will not hesitate to show his teeth.  And anyone who dares insult her will face the full force of his bite. He is making plain, in the only vocabulary he speaks, that her safety is his.

"I'm," Hector says, whey-faced, "for the villa."

Silco inclines his head.

"As—as are we," Cevila stammers. "And, we must apologize, your Excellency, if our manners were lacking." She jerks an elbow into her husband's midriff. He concurs with alacrity. "Ye-es. It won't happen again."

"Indeed," Lady Dennings breathlessly chimes in. "We hope you'll find us far more agreeable once we've reached dry land. And, if we might presume, a trifle more—uh—open-minded. For the sake of progress."

The remaining guests chorus the sentiment.

They resemble, Mel thinks, a gaggle of geese honking in a language they do not understand. For a moment, Ambessa's specter leaps into her mind. Her mother's disdain for these aristocrats—their venal cowardice, and the easy way their moral fiber could be bought with a few coins. And yet, it is they who will make the new order possible.

A better world that, in a twist of irony, will be born from their inveterate greed.

"I am sure," concurs mildly says, "we will have a pleasant stay." Then, to the crewmen: "See Sir Garlen off."

The crewmen, leering, drag Garlen toward the hourglass. The brigadier lets off an aggrieved string of curses, then subsides into a fit of heavy-lidded mutterings. When he awakens, Mel suspects, his recollection of the night's events will verge of hallucinatory. Any accusations—of foul play, jettisoned cargo, magic portals—will be written off as the byproduct of a drinking spree and a wrong turn in the storm.

In short order, the hourglass is prepared. At the dais, the Idol glows a delirious shade of pink. In the bottom chamber, the sand is a slow-motion whirlpool. The crewmen, Garlen slung between them, advance. A life-vest is fitted over Garlen's shoulders.

Silco, standing vigil, addresses the guests. Despite the dire circumstances, his tone is almost conversational.

"You'll find the trip smooth. It may seem like a long duration of transit. But time, in the Void, is a fluid thing. In a way, Sir Garlen is unfortunate. The first experience of Crossing Over is unforgettable. A glimpse into the mysteries of the universe. For some, it becomes a compulsion." He pauses, his tone softening. "Though not one I'd wish on anyone."

He crooks a finger. The crewmen, Garlen in tow, enter the chamber. Mel hears the sound of their passage: the echo boots, the muffled breaths, a last, slurred curse from the Brigadier. The grains, swirling, close around them. Their bodies flicker. In the next instant, they are gone.

The chamber is empty.

Except for the sand. Twinkling, twisting, then, with a dreamlike sentience, drifting into stillness.

The ventricles of Mel's heart constrict. She doesn't want to look at the Idol. But her spine, as if gripped by an immense force, is turned in its direction. The glow sears into her retinas. Inside her head, a slow, soft, sonorous beat rises. She is struck by the profound certainty that it is the creature’s heartbeat, and that the Void is connected to it, and to her.

Like the blood in her veins, a bond is being forged, and its intimacy will never cease.

"All right." Silco's voice solidifies as if through water. "let's be on our way."

Mel is jolted from her trance.

The guests are shuffled toward the portal. Hector is the first. His life-vest has been fitted so tightly that he resembles a stuffed sausage. His expression is taut, the smile long-gone. Behind him, the Dennings are huddled close. Lord Dennings has enfolded his wife's hands into his own. Their waxen faces are stamped with twin expressions of stalwart determination. Cevila, her lipsticked mouth stamped in a grim line, follows. Kolt, in the background, herds the stragglers.

"Mel," Silco says, "come."

 Mel's belly is in knots. Premonition masses with the force of an impending storm. "Are you certain—?"

"Very."

She hears the undertow in his voice: irresistible as the sea's pull. The Idol's maddening resonance fades.

Folding her hands across her belly, Mel steels her spine. One foot before the other. One step. Two. Three. Then she is inside the chamber, and the sand is shimmering, and Silco is beside her, and the bodies are pressing in. A soft humming begins. It is a sound that Mel feels more than hears. As though, instead of air, she is aspirating pure energy.

A crackle—then the whiff of ozone.

The sand grains, suspended, begin to spin.

The chamber flickers. The glass emits pulses of violet light. It is like watching a supernova, radioactive, flare on and off. Then, the pulse stabilizes. The light, rather than waning, climbs like a wave. It fills the hourglass, the gallery, the arena. Then, with a shockwave, it floods everything.

Mel is no longer her body. She is a particle caught in a vortex. She is a star peeling free from the firmament.

She is falling.

Inside Mel, a tiny core of awareness is all that remains.  The rest: sloughed off. She is no longer Mel Medarda. No longer a daughter, or sister, or wife. She is a molecule, and a pulse, and a wave. Her body, starved, is drawn to an unknown fount. Her soul, a nadir, thirsting to plunge.

If she could only get close, the fount will feed her. Nourish her. Answer every question she's ever had; soothe every hurt she's ever known. Joy, boundless. Power, infinite.

All of it, hers.

All she needs is to say: Yes.

But something stays her. The hunger is not her sole guide. There is the heartbeat, too. Mel has heard it before. It's the one inside her, the one she's always possessed, and now, for the first time, it has begun to fork. Its rhythm, disparate from hers, begins to coalesce into a shape. A silhouette. A body, massing, until Mel can see, with a visceral shock, the face she's spent her life trying to forget.

The one who'd shaped her, and made her. And who she's spent so much effort trying to erase.

The heartbeat has led her to Ambessa.

Mel wants to scream. To flee; to fight. But there is no escape. She is locked in a chamber, and the walls are closing in. The particles are swirling. They are her, and not her. She is Ambessa, and not Ambessa. She is trapped inside her mother's flesh. Her mother, trapped within the confines of her memories. And the Medarda bloodline is trapped, too, inside her.

For a strangling moment, they are one.

Then, with a shock, the fusion splits. Mel sees, not her mother, but a child. Eyes the color of the sea at dawn. Curls that glimmer like blackest silk. A smile, aflame, but with a touch of sweetness. She has Kino's wily ways, and Aziz's golden heart, and Ambessa's iron resolve. And Mel's, too: her ambition, her will, and the strength to protect what's hers.

Mel's arms open, and the little girl—the bright, fierce, darling girl—leaps into her embrace.

Mel can feel the shape of her. All the tiny, beautiful details.  The dark grain of her skin: velvety beneath the pads of her fingertips.  The way she circles her chubby arms around Mel's neck, and dots her cheek with a dozen little kisses. Her laughter, a sonic dandelion bursting into bliss. Her scent: sweet and pure and as the seaside, and wholly, irreplaceably hers.

Their hearts beat as one.

Mine, Mel thinks.

Her treasure, her joy, her future.

"Tell me your name," she whispers, and the child laughs, nuzzling closer. Mel feels the soft, downy warmth of her curls. "Dearest, tell me your name."

A giggle, as if this is the silliest thing in the world.  "You already know."

"Do I?"

"You do." Another nuzzle. "So does Papa."

A coldeness creeps across Mel's nape. "Papa."

"Uh-huh." Her little chin lifts, and the dimples in her cheeks deepen. "It's funny. He knows, and I know, and you know. But we can't say so. Not yet."

"Why not?"

"'Cause it's a secret." Her lashes dip. It's a look Mel has seen on herself in the mirror: secretive, coy. Then, in a mercurial flash, her mood shifts. Her gaze, luminous, is all Silco. The blue of his good eye in both of hers. Both, locked on Mel, with indelible intensity. "You have to keep the secret. Or else—"

"What?" Fear claws its way up Mel's throat. "Or else what?"

"Something bad will happen." The girl's Cupid's bow mouth puckers. "Very bad."

"Will it—will it hurt you?"

"Only if you don't stay."

"Stay? What do you mean?"

"Here. With me." The girl's smile has faded. Her stare is beseeching. "I want you to stay."

"I want that, too."

"Do you?" She lays a plump hand, a tiny mirror, over Mel's. "Do you really?"

"Of course I do!" Mel's arms tighten. Her fingers are digging in. She can't make herself stop. "Please. Tell me your name."

"Only if you promise." A pout. "That you'll stay."

"I promise."

"Say it, then." Her eyes are all the colors of the ocean. "I'll stay."

"I—"

"Say it." Her tiny fingers are beginning to bite. "Say it!"

Her little face is irresistibly sweet. But the colors are washing out. The words come eerily distorted.

"Stay. Stay. STAY."

"I—" Mel begins.

A hand falls on Mel's arm. The little girl, in a gust of wind, fades away. Mel is left with only the afterimage of her. Her warmth, lingering. The memory, a superimposed shadow. Her arms fall around the emptiness, and her heart is in her throat, and she is being dragged backward, the hand's grip inescapable. She struggles, and shrieks, and claws, trying to regain what is hers. Her body is a cage, and the only thing within is a howl.

Then—

"Mel."

With a gasp, Mel falls back into herself.

Silco is enfolding her from behind. The embrace is gentle and ruthless. She can feel the shape of him, pressed all the way down: his lips against her ear, his chest to her spine, his arms bracketing her ribs, his boots slotted beside hers. His palms, covering hers, are knitted over her bellybutton. She feels the pulse beating there: hers, his. 

The heat of connection is shockingly real.

"Don't," he whispers. "You'll regret it."

They are, Mel realizes, still in the chamber. It's only been a few seconds.

A few seconds.

And already, her hands are shaking. Blood rims the crescents of her nails. She realizes, with a sick jolt, that she's dug them into the flesh of her belly.  The fabric of her gown is speckled red. She can't feel the pain. Only a faint throb of heat, far-off, and fading fast. Her skin, her senses, her very sanity is being sucked out of her.

She doesn't care. She'll give anything—anything—to have what she'd glimpsed. To hold the little girl, and hear her laughter, and know her name. It will be the truest, best thing Mel will ever have.

And, if it costs her the rest, then she'll pay the price.

"Please," she whispers. "I saw—."

"Whatever you saw, it wasn't real."

"But—"

"It's the call of the Void." His mouth touches the hollow beneath her jaw. "When it opens, you get a glimpse into a world you were never meant to see. Not yet. Sometimes, not ever. And if you succumb to the lure, it'll devour you."

"Silco, I—"

I saw her.

I held her.

I loved her.

She was so beautiful. So alive. So theirs.

"Please," Mel says again, hoarsely. "Please."

 "Hush. It's gone." He tucks her closer. "Brace yourself. We're about to cross."

The sand grains dance in delirious spirals. They are no longer particles: they are fractals of pure energy. The chamber begins to liquify. The walls are coming apart. Mel has lost the sense of her body, of gravity, of the world's axis.  She can hear a keening, high and inhuman, that is both outside and within. Around her, the guests are writhing. They're not human beings anymore, but puppets in thrall to a single string. Kolt and the crewmen struggle to contain them. Then their shapes are obscured—along with everything else—beneath a brilliant white aurora.

It's a solar flare, blinding. 

Flinching, Mel shuts her eyes. The luminosity is a physical pressure, seeping into her lids. Her skin, her hair, every pore and follicle, feels supercharged.

And Silco, enfolding her, holds fast.

"Trust me," he murmurs. "We're nearly there."

The light hits its zenith. Then, slowly, it subsides. The aurora ebbs, and the darkness returns. But it is not the darkness of the undersea. It is the darkness of a cloudless night.

The chamber is gone. They are standing on a pier.

It is incredibly narrow: a long finger of planks and beams, jutting into the sea. The sky, a rich indigo, is flecked with stars. The fishhook of a moon hangs overhead. In the distance, Mel spies a net of colored lights in a dark mass. The island of Wuju, barely a mile offshore. Beyond the pier is a cluster of boats. A few skiffs, and the sleek prow of a ship. Its name is stenciled onto its hull: SS Woe Betide.

Salt-spray lashes Mel's cheeks. She realizes she is at the edge of the railing. The wood cuts into her hipbones. Below, the sea churns. The drop is nearly twenty feet deep. It would be an ugly fall. 

Backtracking, Mel takes a breath. Her face is wet; her lips are moving. But she can't make sense of the sounds. The taste is like salt. Like tears: sobless, silent. Because she is empty-handed. Because the girl, her precious treasure, is gone. She has slipped through her fingers.  

Or—no.

Not slipped. She was never there.

Silco's lips touch her ear.  "Steady. The first shockwave hits the hardest."

His is still behind her, arms wound around her midriff. One hand is splayed across her belly. Mel can feel the imprint of his ring. The cold, smooth band nestles against her navel. The residue of the magic is still imprinted on her nerves: the phantom of loss.

She doesn't know whether to mourn the girl, or herself. 

But if the Void cannot truly give, then perhaps the Void is nothing more than a reflection?

"Look," Silco says, tipping his chin.

Mel does. In the moon's curving glow, she sees the guests scattered around the pier. Some have dropped to their knees, arms stretched heavenward. Others are being held back, forcibly, by Kolt and the other crewmen. Hector, a quivering mound of limbs, is curled in a fetal position. Lady Dennings, eyes streaming, is sobbing inconsolably. Her husband, embracing her, is staring at the middle distance, slack-jawed.  Cevila, caught in a headlock by three men, is shrieking incoherently: eyes bulging, teeth bared.   

"The journey affects everyone differently," Silco says. "Thankfully, after the first exposure, it doesn't linger." A beat. "Mostly."

He's not smiling. But there's a knowledgeable slyness to his expression that sets Mel off-balance.

"Why—why did it hit them harder?" she rasps. "We all crossed over together."

"Because their desires aren't rooted in the heart. Theirs is an ambition born of envy, or greed, or pettiness. Whereas yours..." His stare flits down. "Yours is different. Deeper."

His palm remains anchored over her navel.  A claim laid down, and stained with blood.

Mel bites her lip. She can feel the sting of shallow lacerations. Reality is creeping back in, and with it, a modicum of dismay. "I—I couldn't hold back." The admission hurts. "If it hadn't been for you, I—"

"Would've clawed your belly inside out."  Silco lays his cheek against hers. The film of seawater clings to his skin. "It was your first time. Most would've given in completely."

"You didn't."

"I nearly did, my first time."

"What?"

She can feel the stirring of his breaths: slow, steady, deliberate.

"With Jinx. Years ago, in the Badlands." He swallows, once. "It's nothing I care to repeat."

Mel shivers. Her body, like a tuning fork's ebbing resonance, still sings. She wonders if the sound will ever truly cease. Or if it will stay, a ghostly echo, in the chambers of her heart.

"We ought to," Silco says, his focus on the guests, "make sure they're sane."

Mel manages a nod. Their bodies disentangle; the warmth dissipates. There is something bereft about the distance. Mel doesn't dare dwell on it.  They are not the sort to cling to each other in public. Displays of affection are a calculated performance: beneath the dazzle of cameras, behind the thicket of microphones, before the crowd's hungry eyes.

Here, the intimacy feels too raw. An exposure past endurance. 

"You're shaking," Silco says. His left palm lifts to curve itself over her bare shoulder. The thumb strokes a soft circle into the skin. "Let's get you inside."

"Inside?"

"The villa's only a short distance from the pier. There are guards stationed to escort us."

Mel nods. She absorbs little—but the warmth of his hand, she understands. The guests, in her peripheral vision, have begun to stir to their senses. She can see the confusion that permeates the airwaves. The same emotions that cling to her, miasmic. 

None of them, she thinks, were ready. Now, they've crossed the threshold to No Return.

"Are you able to stand?" Silco asks.

Mel nods again.

"Take my arm."

"I—I can walk on my own."

"Take it."

His tone brooks no argument. In a strange way, it's reassuring. The Crossing has altered everything. But not Silco. Wherever he goes, he remains the same.

The tide: immutable.

Taking a steadying breath, Mel straightens. The night wind whips at her hair, her dress. Her limbs seem to be made of gelatin; her mind a slurry of conflicting impulses.

But, also: exhilarated.

A strange subspecies of joy is spreading through her. Not the kind she experiences when her schemes are playing out to fine-tuned perfection. Something brighter, purer, undiluted.

A sense of homecoming.

As if reading her thoughts, Silco says, "A mild euphoria can follow the first Crossing. It will fade soon. Until then, I'd advise against letting the eyes wander." 

"Why?"

"Hallucinations." He takes her elbow. "Best not to tempt fate."

"I—I see."

Mel wills the world back into focus. The guests, herded by the crew, have been ushered to the pier's end. Mel makes out the shape of a long rowboat, bobbing gently on the white-capped waves. The guests are being bundled into it. Blankets are distributed; thermoses of hot tea passed out.

Silco, his hand a loose latch on Mel's arm, leads her forward.

"Stay close," he cautions. "The boards are slippery."

Carefully, Mel wends her way along the pier. The path before her has a rippling quality: her balance is off. She focuses on mimicking Silco's sure-footed tread. Glimpsed from behind, she is struck by the slenderness of his silhouette. The spare cut of his torso; the tidy nip of his waist; the lithe swimmer's legs.

He's not a large man. And because he's not, he's always had to assert himself. To stay braced, every moment, against a world that will never be forgiving to those with less.

For the first time, Mel is hit by the full force of his fragility. How little of it he lets her see. How much of it she still doesn't know.

And how much, if she's honest, she longs to find out.

Then it happens.

A cry, loud and shrill, splits the night. Mel falters mid-step. In the frothing blackness of the waves, she catches a flash of dark flesh: a hand, clawing wildly up the pier's planks. Then a figure surges out in slithering increments. The moonlight, ghostly, traps itself in the bronzed contours of her musculature. Her eyes, a fiery gold, are locked on Mel. Her teeth, bared, are the color of old ivory.

Ambessa.

Her uniform is studded with pale encrustations of barnacles. The armor drips, water pattering across the floorboards. The wild gray corona of her hair is plastered to her skull. The rest of her: waterlogged as a sunken ship. 

It's as if she's been dragged across the seven seas.

As if she's a revenant, risen from the dead.

At her throat, a necklace—the one belonging to the Ionian chieftain's daughter—jangles like a garland of bones. The dark glisten of blood limns the coral ornaments. Her features are streaked with it. Her expression: a naked rictus of bloodlust.

Half kraken, half killer.

"You," she spits.

Then she's lunging for Silco.

Mel acts on reflex. Her body shoves his aside. Cursing, Silco staggers off-kilter. His hand drops from Mel's arm. The moment it does, the planks skid from under her boots. Her thighs collide with the railing. Then she is toppling backward.

For a moment, she is weightless. Her body caught in zero gravity. Her mind, a free-floating mote.

Mel registers the details in a series of suspended snapshots: the hypnagogic moon pinwheeling above; the stars, a thousand eyes, blinking in and out; Ambessa, a raging Fury, bearing down. Then gravity pulls. Mel's stomach plunges into her heels. Her arms fly outward. Her fingers claw empty air.

There is nothing to hold on to.

Only the Void's hungry inverse.

The Deep End.

Then, with a giddy quiver of gelatinous peristalsis, the moment erupts.

Mel, a shriek ripped from her lungs, drops.

The plunge is an instant; an eternity. The waves are a frenzied churn. The chill radiates, shockingly cold, and seizes her breath.

Mel has one final cogent thought: Silco.

Then, the water rises up, and swallows her whole.

[deadboyfriendd]

Tagged by @jo-harrington, I'm rubbing my little rat paws together at this tag game

[vlkphoto]

ಬಿದರೀ ತಟ್ಟೆ

A magnificent specimen of Bidriware at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA.

Tray India (Deccan), 17th century, Metal alloy with silver and brass inlay The bold contrasts of the pattern on this tray are typical of bidriware, a type of metalwork that and probably originated in the Islamic kingdoms of central India known as the Deccani sultanates. Bidriware objects graced the reception and private rooms of Deccani as well as Mughal elites. Trays like this one would have held a hookah and related accoutrements.

[sonacraft]

Stainless Steel Hookah- The Best Type of Hookah

Stainless steel hookahs offer a modern twist on the traditional hookah design, incorporating the durability and sleek aesthetic of stainless steel material. Here's some information about stainless steel hookahs:

Material: Stainless steel hookahs are made primarily from stainless steel, a corrosion-resistant alloy composed of iron, chromium, nickel, and other metals. This material is known for its durability, resistance to rust and corrosion, and sleek appearance.

Design: Stainless steel hookahs come in various designs, but they typically feature a stainless steel stem, tray, and hose port. The stem may be cylindrical or have a more elaborate shape, depending on the model. Some stainless steel hookahs also include decorative accents or engravings for added visual appeal.

Durability: One of the primary advantages of stainless steel hookahs is their durability. Unlike traditional hookahs made from materials like brass or glass, stainless steel hookahs are less prone to breakage and damage. They can withstand regular use and are often more resistant to wear and tear.

Easy to Clean: Stainless steel hookahs are relatively easy to clean compared to hookahs made from other materials. Stainless steel is non-porous, making it resistant to staining and odor absorption. You can typically clean a stainless steel hookah with soap and water or a mild cleaning solution.

Heat Management: Stainless steel hookahs are excellent for heat management, as stainless steel material heats up and cools down relatively quickly. This allows for precise temperature control during smoking sessions, helping to prevent overheating and harsh smoke.

Portability: Some stainless steel hookahs are designed to be more portable than traditional hookahs, thanks to their lightweight construction and durable material. They may feature detachable components or compact designs that make them easy to transport.

Compatibility: Stainless steel hookahs are compatible with a wide range of accessories and upgrades, including different bowl types, hoses, and attachments. This versatility allows users to customize their hookah smoking experience to suit their preferences.

Price: Stainless steel hookahs typically fall into the mid to high price range, depending on the brand, design, and features. While they may be more expensive upfront compared to hookahs made from other materials, their durability and longevity can make them a worthwhile investment over time.

Overall, stainless steel hookahs offer a blend of durability, sleek design, and easy maintenance, making them a popular choice among hookah enthusiasts looking for a modern and reliable smoking experience. We have the largest range of stainless steel hookah. For more information visit our site www.sonacraft.net or contact us at +91-9599820037

[akehoshimystar]

Soyogu SR

Journey of Thoughts with Purple Smoke

Part 1

Soyogu: There’s no problem with the size.

Shinkai-san came out of the staff room dressed in classic Western clothing. He stretched his arms and twisted his waist to check how it felt.

Ito: It suits you, Shinkai-san

Soyogu: Oh, thanks.

Not sure if I look like Caterpillar enough, though.

There are items associated with the characters, like hat for the Hatter, pocket watch and monocles for the White Rabbit….

Ito: It might be quite hard to recreate the image of Caterpillar.

Soyogu: Speaking of what makes one character unique, it has to be something tangible, but to express that, I need to wear a full-body costume.

But Caterpillar’s inner thoughts and gestures are not easy to replicate. 

Ito: Maybe something like asking Alice who she is.

Soyogu: Yeah. He's a character with a philosophical impression.

Although never once have I thought someone would ask me what a caterpillar is. It’s like being hit by a boomerang.

Roka: Hey, hey, you guys, something troubling you?

As if he had heard our conversation from somewhere, Roka-san dressed as the Queen of Hearts made an appearance.

Roka: I've brought you a special and indispensable item for the Caterpillar.

Feast your eyes!

Ito: Is this... a smoking pipe?

Soyogu: Ah, I see. 

The Caterpillar was smoking while talking to Alice.

But isn’t it supposed to be a hookah?

Roka: Yup! But if we work around it, it might not be that different. I brought it as an accessory.

See, the atmosphere can be conveyed well enough with a pipe, right?

Ito: Now that you mention it...

Soyogu: It certainly does produce smoke.

Roka: Good job, me!

Soyogu: Thank you for your consideration, Roka-san.

A brass pipe, huh? It's surprisingly heavy.

Ito: Did something come to you while you’re holding it?

Soyogu: Ah... I couldn’t grasp a thing.

I’m not much of a smoker myself. I don’t even know how to hold it.

Roka: I've got a great idea. Allow me to instruct you!

Ito: Roka-san as a teacher...?

Roka: Ahem! I’ll let my experience do the talking.

Soyogu: Aren’t cigarettes and pipes two different things?

Roka: Well, it can be the same thing if we try hard enough! 

Ito: (What a vague statement….. But I also don’t think it’s that much different.)

Roka: Let's start the lesson now. Come on, Gucchi, follow me!

Part 2

A sudden lesson on how to hold a pipe was being held by Roka-san.

Roka: How about this?

When he held it with his index finger along its long body, the unique lethargy of the pipe really stood out.

Ito: ...It’s incredible, Roka-san. You look really great.

Soyogu: Combined with Roka-san's suspicious aura, it's strangely alluring.

Roka: Suspicious is a harsh way to put it...! Just say mysterious.

Ito: Doesn't this remind you of a courtesan? I remember her holding it like this in a movie.

Soyogu: Now you want me to be a courtesan? That’s a tall order.

Roka: That’s no problem! As long as you feel it in your heart.

Now is your turn, Gucchi!

Soyogu: ...How about this?

Shinkai-san is holding a pipe in the same way as Roka-san, but combined with his build, it gives off a strange intensity….

Ito: (He looks more like a mafia boss...)

Well... You certainly look strong.

Roka: Nice, Gucchi. You look like a mafia boss!

Ito: (... It’s as if he has read my mind, but I didn’t expect him to say it outright like that.)

Soyogu: Am I supposed to be happy with that?

Roka: Okay, how about this?

Just relax...

Soyogu: Relax...?

Roka-san’s expressions suddenly look very unclear, making it hard to understand his intentions...

Ito: Maybe you should try easing up a bit? If the Caterpillar is on guard, Alice will run away.

Soyogu: I see. I’ll try.

Shinkai-san held the pipe by scooping up the center. The way he handled it was both dignified and rugged.

Ito: (He's starting to look more like himself.)

Soyogu: Make it look like I’m playing around with smoke... Like this?

Shinkai-san held his pipe languidly, exhaling into the air. For a moment, he reminded me of the Caterpillar smoking the hookah.

Ito: That was splendid. The scene from Alice was literally popping up in my mind.

Roka: Neatly done, Gucchi!  

There's nothing more to teach now...!

Ito: (All the advice so far was beyond vague, but he was able to absorb it and make it his own.)

As expected from you, Shinkai-san.

Soyogu: Thank you for accompanying me, Yashiro-san.

Ito: I have learned something as well.

By the way, are you going to carry this pipe around for the whole event?

Soyogu: I don’t think so. It might bother customers after all……..

………………….Wait a second. What was I practicing for again?

Roka: Ahhhhahaha! You don’t have to put it so bluntly.….

Shinkai-san gave Roka-san a satisfied smile, with a hint of loneliness.

Soyogu: Well, even if I don't have a chance to hold a pipe, I was able to grasp the Caterpillar’s characteristics. So it’s all good.

Ito: Eh... What do you mean?

Soyogu: An attitude of always facing and talking to yourself. Also, not to force yourself and be natural.

I think that applies to a lot of things.

Roka: Oh wow. That interpretation is just so you, Gucchi!

Ito: Maybe Roka-san’s teaching method worked unexpectedly well. 

Roka: Fufu. You can ask me again anytime.

Next to Roka-san who was standing with pride. Shinkai-san turned his subtle eyes towards me.

Soyogu: Hey, Yashiro.

Who are you?

There’s not an ounce of hesitation in his expression as he asked this question, just like the Caterpillar toying with and leading Alice around….

Ito: I…..

Who am I? What do I want to be? Truth be told, I have been searching for the answer to those questions.

[radicalvapeshop]

Discover the Best Place to Buy Hookahs Online in Canada

The Growing Popularity of Hookah in Canada

Hookah smoking has seen a significant rise in popularity across Canada in recent years. Originating from the Middle East, hookah, also known as shisha, narghile, or waterpipe, has become a beloved social activity for many. The appeal lies in its ability to bring people together, fostering a relaxing and communal atmosphere. With the rise of online shopping, it’s now easier than ever to find and purchase hookahs, accessories, and shisha from reputable Canadian online retailers.

Why Buy Hookahs Online?

Convenience

One of the biggest advantages of buying hookahs online is convenience. Buy Hookahs Online Canada You can browse through a wide selection of products from the comfort of your home, without the need to visit multiple stores. Online shopping allows you to compare prices, read reviews, and make informed decisions without any pressure.

Variety

Online stores offer a vast array of hookahs in different styles, sizes, and materials. Whether you're looking for a traditional Egyptian hookah, a modern glass hookah, or a compact travel-friendly option, you’ll find it all online. Additionally, online retailers often stock a wide range of accessories, including hoses, bowls, charcoal, and mouthpieces, making it a one-stop-shop for all your hookah needs.

Competitive Prices

Online retailers often offer competitive prices and special deals that you may not find in brick-and-mortar stores. Many online stores in Canada provide discounts, bundle offers, and loyalty programs to attract customers, allowing you to get the best value for your money.

Customer Reviews and Ratings

When shopping online, you can benefit from customer reviews and ratings. These insights can help you make informed decisions by providing feedback from other buyers. Reading reviews can give you a better understanding of the product’s quality, performance, and overall satisfaction, ensuring you choose the right hookah for your needs.

What to Look for When Buying a Hookah Online

Quality and Craftsmanship

When purchasing a hookah, quality and craftsmanship should be your top priority. Look for hookahs made from durable materials like stainless steel, brass, or high-quality glass. Ensure the hookah has a sturdy base, a well-sealed hose connection, and a smooth draw for the best smoking experience.

 

Brand Reputation

Choose reputable brands known for their quality and reliability. Some well-known hookah brands include Khalil Mamoon, MYA Saray, and Starbuzz. These brands have built a reputation for producing high-quality hookahs that provide an exceptional smoking experience.

Accessories and Replacement Parts

Consider the availability of accessories and replacement parts when buying a hookah. A good online store should offer a wide range of accessories, including bowls, hoses, and grommets, as well as replacement parts to keep your hookah in top condition.

Customer Service and Support

Opt for online retailers that offer excellent customer service and support. This ensures you have assistance if you encounter any issues with your purchase or need help with assembly and maintenance.

Top Online Stores to Buy Hookahs in Canada

Shisha Mart

Shisha Mart is a leading online retailer in Canada, offering a wide selection of hookahs, accessories, and shisha flavors. They are known for their competitive prices, excellent customer service, and fast shipping.

Hookah John Canada

Hookah John Canada specializes in premium hookahs and accessories. Rufpuf Viper 9000 Puff Disposable They offer a curated selection of high-quality products from renowned brands, ensuring you get the best smoking experience.

Canadian Shisha

Canadian Shisha is another popular online store that provides a vast array of hookahs, shisha flavors, and accessories. They offer great deals and discounts, making it a go-to destination for hookah enthusiasts.

[oswomsmoke]

Smoking Pipes Manufacturers in India: Crafting Tradition and Innovation

India, with its rich history and diverse culture, has always been a land of skilled craftsmanship. This tradition extends to the manufacture of smoking pipes, an industry that combines age-old techniques with modern innovations to cater to both domestic and international markets. Smoking pipes manufacturers in India are renowned for their quality, variety, and artistic designs, making them key players in the global smoking accessories market.

Historical Roots and Cultural Significance

Smoking pipes have a long history in India, dating back to ancient times when they were used in various cultural and religious practices. Traditional hookahs and chillums were integral to social and ceremonial gatherings. This deep-rooted history has provided a strong foundation for contemporary smoking pipes manufacturers, who draw inspiration from these traditional forms while embracing modern trends.

Diverse Range of Products

Indian manufacturers offer a wide array of smoking pipes, each designed to meet the specific preferences of different user groups. The product range typically includes:

Wooden Pipes: Known for their natural aesthetics and smooth smoking experience, wooden pipes are handcrafted from various types of wood, such as rosewood, sandalwood, and teak. The intricate carvings and designs on these pipes reflect the artisans' skill and attention to detail.

Metal Pipes: Durable and stylish, metal pipes are often made from materials like brass, copper, and stainless steel. These pipes are popular for their robustness and contemporary designs, appealing to a younger demographic.

Glass Pipes: Valued for their purity and ease of cleaning, glass pipes come in various colors and shapes. They are often decorated with artistic patterns and are a favorite among enthusiasts who appreciate both functionality and aesthetics.

Clay and Ceramic Pipes: These pipes offer a unique smoking experience and are often adorned with traditional motifs and designs. They are ideal for collectors and those who enjoy a more rustic and authentic feel.

Commitment to Quality and Craftsmanship

Quality is a hallmark of smoking pipes manufacturers in India. Each pipe is crafted with meticulous attention to detail, ensuring a high level of durability and performance. Manufacturers adhere to stringent quality control measures, from the selection of raw materials to the final finishing touches. This commitment to excellence has helped Indian smoking pipes gain a reputation for reliability and artistry.

Innovation and Customization

Innovation is central to the growth of smoking pipes manufacturers in India. They continuously explore new materials, designs, and manufacturing techniques to keep up with evolving market trends. Customization is another key aspect, allowing customers to personalize their pipes with unique designs, engravings, and finishes. This bespoke approach caters to individual preferences and enhances the user experience.

Market Reach and Export Potential

Smoking pipes manufacturers in India have a significant presence in both domestic and international markets. Their products are exported to various countries, including the United States, Europe, and Southeast Asia. The global demand for Indian smoking pipes is driven by their superior quality, competitive pricing, and the exotic appeal of traditional craftsmanship.

Challenges and Opportunities

Despite the thriving market, manufacturers face several challenges. These include regulatory hurdles, competition from international brands, and the need to keep pace with changing consumer preferences. However, the growing acceptance of smoking accessories and the trend towards artisanal and handcrafted products present substantial opportunities.

Manufacturers who can balance tradition with innovation, maintain high-quality standards, and effectively market their products will continue to succeed in this dynamic industry.

Sustainability and Ethical Practices

In an increasingly eco-conscious world, many smoking pipes manufacturers in India are adopting sustainable practices. This includes using eco-friendly materials, minimizing waste, and ensuring ethical labor practices. These efforts not only appeal to environmentally conscious consumers but also contribute to the long-term sustainability of the industry.

Conclusion

Smoking pipes manufacturers in India blend tradition with modernity, creating products that are both functional and artistically appealing. Their commitment to quality, innovation, and customization has positioned them as leaders in the global market. As the industry continues to evolve, Indian manufacturers are poised to meet new challenges and seize emerging opportunities, ensuring their continued success and growth.

[glasscraftswholesale1]

Glass Hookah

Glass Hookah: A Modern Twist to Traditional Smoking

Introduction

In recent years, the smoking industry has witnessed a surge in popularity and innovation. One such innovation that has caught the attention of smoking enthusiasts is the glass hookah. Combining the elegance of glass craftsmanship with the pleasure of smoking, glass hookahs offer a unique and modern twist to the traditional smoking experience. In this article, we will explore the allure of glass hookahs, their benefits, and how they have become a sought-after choice among smoking enthusiasts.

The Evolution of Hookahs

Hookahs, also known as shishas or water pipes, have a rich history dating back centuries. Originating in the Middle East, these devices have been used for social gatherings, cultural rituals, and leisurely smoking. Traditionally, hookahs were made from materials like brass, wood, and clay. However, with the advancements in manufacturing techniques, the introduction of glass hookahs revolutionized the industry.

What Sets Glass Hookahs Apart

Glass hookahs have gained popularity due to their unique characteristics and benefits. Unlike traditional hookahs, which are often opaque, glass hookahs provide a mesmerizing visual experience as the smoke passes through the transparent body. This captivating sight adds a touch of elegance to the overall smoking ritual.

Craftsmanship and Aesthetics

Glass hookahs are crafted with precision and attention to detail. Skilled artisans create intricate designs and patterns, resulting in visually stunning pieces of art. The delicate nature of glass allows for endless possibilities in terms of shapes, colors, and textures. Whether it's a simple and sleek design or an elaborate and ornate masterpiece, glass hookahs offer a wide range of aesthetic options to suit individual preferences.

Enhanced Smoking Experience

Glass hookahs are known for delivering a smooth and enjoyable smoking experience. The use of glass materials ensures a clean and pure taste without any interference from other elements. The transparency of the glass allows smokers to witness the smoke as it travels through the various chambers, heightening the visual appeal and creating a sense of relaxation.

Durability and Maintenance

Contrary to popular belief, glass hookahs are not as fragile as they may seem. High-quality borosilicate glass, known for its strength and resistance to thermal shock, is commonly used in the manufacturing process. This makes glass hookahs durable and less prone to breakage. Additionally, glass hookahs are relatively easy to clean and maintain, ensuring a hassle-free smoking experience.

Exploring Different Designs

One of the exciting aspects of glass hookahs is the wide variety of designs available in the market. From classic and traditional designs to modern and contemporary styles, there is a glass hookah to suit every taste and preference. Some designs incorporate vibrant colors, while others focus on intricate patterns or minimalist aesthetics. With such diverse options, smokers can find a glass hookah that reflects their personal style and enhances their smoking sessions.

Health and Safety Considerations

When it comes to smoking, health and safety are important considerations. Glass hookahs offer several advantages in this regard. The use of glass eliminates the risk of toxins or chemicals leaching into the smoke, ensuring a cleaner and purer smoking experience. Furthermore, the water filtration system in hookahs helps remove impurities, resulting in a smoother and less harsh smoke.

Social Appeal and Trendiness

Beyond the functional benefits, glass hookahs have gained popularity due to their social appeal and trendiness. Their elegant and captivating appearance makes them a centerpiece of attraction during social gatherings. Many enthusiasts enjoy the ritualistic aspects of smoking with friends, engaging in conversations and creating memorable experiences. Glass hookahs add a touch of sophistication and elevate the overall ambiance of any social setting.

The Rise of Artistic Glass Hookahs

In recent years, glass hookahs have evolved into artistic masterpieces. Talented glassblowers and artists have taken hookah design to new heights, incorporating intricate details, vibrant colors, and mesmerizing patterns. These artistic glass hookahs serve as both functional smoking devices and exquisite works of art, attracting collectors and enthusiasts alike.

Where to Find Glass Hookahs

Glass hookahs are readily available in specialty smoke shops, online marketplaces, and even some traditional hookah lounges. When purchasing a glass hookah, it's essential to choose a reputable seller to ensure the authenticity and quality of the product. Reading customer reviews and seeking recommendations can help in making an informed decision.

How to Choose the Right Glass Hookah

Selecting the right glass hookah involves considering factors such as design, size, price, and personal preferences. It's essential to choose a hookah that fits your smoking style and aesthetic taste. Whether you prioritize portability, ease of use, or visual appeal, conducting thorough research and exploring different options will assist in finding the perfect glass hookah for your needs.

Tips for Using a Glass Hookah

To maximize your glass hookah experience, it's crucial to follow a few essential tips:

·         Use high-quality charcoal and shisha tobacco for a flavorful smoke.

·         Ensure proper assembly and airtight connections to avoid leaks.

·         Adjust the heat management to maintain an optimal smoking temperature.

·         Clean the glass hookah regularly to prevent residue buildup and maintain its performance.

Cleaning and Maintenance Guide

Cleaning and maintaining a glass hookah is relatively simple. Here's a step-by-step guide:

1.       Disassemble the hookah carefully.

2.       Rinse the glass components with warm water to remove any residue.

3.       Use a brush or pipe cleaner to clean the downstem and other hard-to-reach areas.

4.       Dry the parts thoroughly before reassembling the hookah.

5.       Store the hookah in a safe place to prevent damage when not in use.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

FAQ 1: Are glass hookahs more expensive than traditional hookahs?

Glass hookahs can vary in price depending on their design, craftsmanship, and brand. While some glass hookahs may be more expensive than traditional ones, there are also affordable options available in the market.

FAQ 2: Can I use my glass hookah for smoking herbal blends?

Yes, glass hookahs can be used to smoke herbal blends. However, it's important to choose herbal blends that are specifically designed for hookah smoking to ensure a pleasant and enjoyable experience.

FAQ 3: Are glass hookahs suitable for beginners?

Glass hookahs are suitable for both beginners and experienced smokers. Their transparent design allows beginners to observe the smoke flow, making it easier to understand the mechanics of the device.

FAQ 4: Can I customize the accessories of my glass hookah?

Yes, many glass hookahs offer customization options for accessories such as hoses, bowls, and mouthpieces. This allows smokers to personalize their hookah and enhance their overall smoking experience.

FAQ 5: Are glass hookahs safe to use?

Glass hookahs are generally safe to use when used responsibly. It's important to follow proper usage guidelines, clean the hookah regularly, and ensure a well-ventilated smoking area to minimize any potential risks.

Conclusion

Glass hookahs have become a popular choice among smoking enthusiasts due to their unique blend of aesthetics, functionality, and social appeal. From their mesmerizing visual experience to the enhanced smoking pleasure they offer, glass hookahs have taken the traditional smoking experience to new heights. With their durability, diverse designs, and artistic craftsmanship, glass hookahs have firmly established themselves as a modern twist to the age-old tradition of smoking.

[armandosdigitalblog]

Top 10 Hookahs to Buy in 2024: A Comprehensive Guide

In recent years, the popularity of hookah smoking has surged, becoming a favored pastime for many. With 2024 bringing new innovations and designs to the market, selecting the right hookah can be daunting. This comprehensive guide highlights the top 10 hookahs to consider purchasing this year, ensuring you make an informed choice.

1. Khalil Mamoon Gold Sultan

Khalil Mamoon is synonymous with traditional craftsmanship and durability. The Gold Sultan stands out with its exquisite gold finish and robust build. This hookah with Shisha not only offers a classic smoking experience but also serves as a striking piece of decor. Its wide-gauge hose ensures smooth, voluminous clouds, making it perfect for seasoned enthusiasts.

2. Regal Queen

Regal Hookahs are known for their elegant wooden stems and superior performance. The Regal Queen combines a sleek, contemporary design with high-quality materials. Its precision-engineered components provide an effortless draw and exceptional durability. This hookah is ideal for those who appreciate both aesthetics and functionality.

3. Mya QT

For those seeking portability without compromising on quality, the Mya QT is a top choice. Compact and lightweight, it’s perfect for travel or small spaces. Despite its size, the Mya QT delivers a remarkable smoking experience, thanks to its well-designed components and sturdy construction. Its affordability makes it an excellent option for beginners.

4. Shika Tyrant

The Shika Tyrant blends traditional aesthetics with modern performance. Handcrafted in Egypt, this hookah features intricate designs and durable brass construction. The Tyrant’s wide-gauge hose and large base ensure dense, flavorful clouds. It’s an excellent choice for those looking for a high-quality, visually appealing hookah.

5. Starbuzz Carbine

Known for their innovative designs, Starbuzz introduces the Carbine, a futuristic hookah that boasts cutting-edge features. Its adjustable height, unique purge system, and built-in diffuser set it apart from traditional models. The Carbine is designed for tech-savvy users who appreciate advanced functionality and modern aesthetics.

6. B2 Reaper

The B2 Reaper is a testament to precision engineering. Made from high-grade aluminum, this modular hookah offers customizable height and exceptional heat management. Its unique design facilitates easy cleaning and maintenance. The Reaper is perfect for enthusiasts who value customization and top-tier performance.

7. Wookah Oak

Wookah hookahs are renowned for their natural wood finishes and handcrafted quality. The Wookah Oak features a stunning oak wood stem paired with a crystal glass base. This hookah offers an elegant smoking experience with its seamless draw and luxurious design. It’s ideal for those who appreciate natural materials and refined craftsmanship.

8. Oduman N7 Tank

For fans of contemporary design, the Oduman N7 Tank is a standout choice. This glass hookah combines minimalist aesthetics with high functionality. Its stainless steel components and large glass base provide a clean, smooth smoking experience. The N7 Tank is perfect for modern spaces and users who prefer a sleek, transparent look.

9. Alpaca Predator

The Alpaca Predator is a versatile hookah that excels in both performance and durability. Made from high-quality stainless steel, it features a modular design that allows for easy customization and cleaning. Its wide-bore hose and large base ensure thick, flavorful clouds. The Predator is ideal for those who seek a reliable, high-performance hookah.

10. VYRO One

The VYRO One is a revolutionary portable hookah designed for on-the-go use. Made from durable V2A stainless steel, it’s incredibly compact and easy to transport. Despite its size, the VYRO One offers a robust smoking experience with its innovative design and high-quality components. It’s perfect for adventurers who don’t want to compromise on quality.

Conclusion

Choosing the right hookah can significantly enhance your smoking experience. Whether you prioritize traditional craftsmanship, modern innovation, portability, or aesthetics, this list of the top 10 hookahs to buy in 2024 covers a range of preferences and needs. Each of these models offers unique features and benefits, ensuring there’s a perfect hookah for every enthusiast. Make an informed decision and elevate your hookah sessions with one of these outstanding options.

[lcwh]

[gothdaddyissues]

The Devil Came To A Small Town

Story Summary: In a bougie small town, a local witch strikes up a business relationship with the newly-arrived Satanic Church, setting in motion a series of events that lead to two misfits falling in love

Chapter Four available on Ao3

or under the cut (~5000 words)

PS - you can jump into this chapter without reading the others if you're just looking for a good time... 😉

THE DREAM - Izzy has a dream evoking her wild past and the skull painted man... and things get smutty.

⛧ Playlist for this chapter ⛧

ADULT CONTENT - 18+ ONLY - MINORS DNI

Tags: OC female, Cardinal Copia/Papa IV, smut smut smut, Dom Papa IV, dubious consent (it's dream sex), rough sex, oral sex, rough oral sex, choking, dirty talk, dom/sub dynamics, unprotected sex, No Beta (we die like Terzo), Google Translate Italiano

Catch up here: | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 |

Saturday night at The Sanctuary was always the busiest. It wasn’t just the townies, but all the ultra-fashionable goths from the city would show up too. And it was Darkwave Dance Party night, so she knew it would be full of the fun, freaky types.

She was bored. Restless and horny. She wanted to drink until she was nice and loose, wanted to get lost in the seductive beat of the music. To dance, and hopefully get a little action if she could find the right guy to grind up against.

She made her way up the steps of the old Abbey, clad in a skin-tight, sapphire blue velvet slipdress and high-heeled, black leather thigh-high boots. This was an outfit that always got attention, and attention was what was craving. Her long, dark hair was flat ironed stick straight, her black winged eyeliner sharp enough to stab, her lips painted blood red. She was on the prowl tonight, a huntress in search of her prey.

She could feel the beat of the music from outside, recognizing it immediately as Love Like Blood by Killing Joke. A great start. The bouncers let her right in, knew her on sight as a regular. Her friends were probably already inside, but that didn’t matter to her. Tonight wasn’t about hanging out with her usual crew. She wanted something new and different to keep her occupied.

The main hallway was a sea of pale faces, studded leather, and black lace. She sliced through the crowd to the Vampire Lounge - the bartenders there poured a little heavier. The walls were hung with red velvet curtains and ornate brass sconces. Richly upholstered Victorian furniture was scattered between carved wooden tables and coffin-shaped bookcases. Tall candelabras stood every few feet, black candles dripping with melted wax. Long-haired Lestat wannabes lounged about, sucking on Hookah pipes and sipping Guinness Snakebites. Boring boring boring. Not why she was here.

The next song started - She’s In Parties by Bauhaus. Another favorite of hers. She took a seat at the bar, hailed a bartender, and got herself a Dirty Shirley with extra maraschino cherries. She took a deep swig, then sucked two cherries off of the plastic pick into her mouth - sticky, sweet, and juicy. It gave her a moment to survey the crowd, looking for potential suitors for the night. Lots of familiar faces and a few she didn’t recognize. Alas, no one stood out.

Until she caught a glimpse of him. Brief. Too brief. But enough of a look to build intrigue. It was the painted face that captured her attention at first. Sure, almost every face in this building was painted in some form. Not like this though. Stark-white skin with deep black circles around his eyes and a sharp, perfectly defined black contour that ran across his cheekbones and mouth. Skull paint. Dramatic much? Unique though. His salt-and-pepper hair was brushed back from his face, definitely an elder goth-type. In the few seconds she watched him she could feel the heat building low inside her. Yep, this was the one. He seemed a bit dangerous, and she liked that…. And also a little familiar? A spark of recognition, even though she was quite sure she’d never seen him here before. But as quickly as she had seen him, he turned away and disappeared into the crowd.

She downed the rest of her drink and ordered another, scanning the room to find him again. Was that him? The back of a jacket, distressed edges, elaborately laced from collar to hem, straight down the spine. He was heading for the Chapel, where the dance floor was. She followed, fresh drink in hand. She was feeling warm and fuzzy. Was it the alcohol or was it arousal? It didn’t matter - she was reveling in it either way.

The Chapel was across the main hallway from the Lounge, and the hallway was suddenly extremely crowded. So many people. They were an annoyance to her. She was searching for him. She’d catch sight of him, and then he was gone again. There and gone. There and gone. For a moment, she panicked, feeling like she might drown in this sea of bodies. But she worked her way through as the crowd ebbed and flowed, sluggishly pushing her forward towards the Chapel entrance like lazy waves rolling towards the shore.

She crossed the threshold into the Chapel, the ancient stone flooring throbbing with the beat of the music. This was once a place of worship, but now instead of an altar, there was a DJ booth. Instead of a crucifix dangling above, there was a wall of speakers. Pulsating lights hung from the soaring, arched ceiling, illuminating the writhing mass of people on the dancefloor in red, blue, gold, and green. Couples, groups, grinding, kissing, fondling each other under the stained glass windows. A hot and sweaty den of debauchery, profane and blasphemous. Sanctuary, but only for the wicked.

The DJ segued into the next song. Lucretia My Reflection by Sisters of Mercy. Oooh shit, she loved this one so much. She took one more deep drink from her glass and abandoned it on a nearby table before stepping onto the dance floor to sway and sashay to the music. She raised her arms over her head and twirled, letting go of inhibition…

There he was, her skull-painted prey, making his way through the crowd along the side of the dance floor. The mass of people parted to make room for him as if they were commanded to. Perhaps they could sense the power in him, the same sheer magnetism that was drawing her to him and making her ache inside. She continued to sway, watching him move, watching him work the crowd, seeing how they gazed at him in awe. Suddenly, he stopped, turning towards the dance floor and staring directly at her.

She could finally get a good look at him now. The artfully distressed jacket and matching skin–tight jeans. The black vest and silk shirt with a high collar and ruffled cuffs that almost completely covered his gloved hands. The royal blue cravat tied around his neck. The perfect goth daddy. Only then did she notice his eyes - one green, one white. That pang of recognition hit her again. He seemed so familiar to her.

She continued to writhe to the music as he stared down his nose at her, not relinquishing eye contact, looking every bit like a dom ready to tame his brat. Like he knew that was exactly what she wanted. Heat was pooling in her core. She had never needed a man so badly in her life.

The tables had turned. Now she was the prey, and he had her perfectly in his sights.

She closed her eyes and ran her hands over her body, from her ass to her waist, sliding up over her breasts and across her neck into her hair, all while dancing seductively. If he was going to stare, she might as well give him a show, right? When she opened her eyes again, he was gone.

She faltered, stumbling a bit as she stopped still on the dance floor, her eyes desperately searching for him in the crowd. Before she could turn to look around, she felt him. He was right behind her, his gloved hands coming to her waist, slipping down to her hips and gripping them tight, tight enough to bruise. He pulled her body against his, her back pressed to his front. She could feel how hard he was against the swell of her ass.

Oh yes, this is what she wanted. Needed. Craved.

The song faded into the next: Night Shift by Siouxie and the Banshees. A slow, sexy beat, dark and dreamy, just like the man holding her. It was hypnotic.

She slid her hands down and placed them over top of his, encouraging his tight grip as she rocked her hips to the beat of the music. Her ass wriggled back and forth, back and forth, teasing him further. He moved with her, rolling his hips into her in a luscious grind. She closed her eyes and dropped her head back against his shoulder, lolling to the side, lost in the sensation of his body on hers. His head dipped down, his lips barely ghosting over her exposed neck as he breathed her in, nuzzling her with his nose until his mouth was at her ear.

“Well, aren’t you a sexy little thing?” It was a whispered growl. “Did you come here to play tonight, gattina?”

His voice, his accent, sent a shiver right through to her core; his breath in her ear gave her goosebumps. She mewled in response, unable to form a coherent thought.

He turned her then, his gloved hands at her waist to move her so they were face to face. He pulled her flush against him once more. His left hand took a firm hold of her ass, his fingers digging into the pliant flesh while his right hand slid up to the back of her neck, bringing her face so so close to his and trapping her there. He lowered his forehead to hers, their noses brushing against each other’s, lips a hair’s breadth from touching. They stayed like this for a few moments, swaying together in time with the music. She felt his leg nudge hers apart, slipping in between them, his thigh pressing firmly against her. The hand on her ass nudged her forward and then pulled her back, over and over, slowly and deliberately, until she was riding this thigh, gripping onto the lapels of his jacket to keep herself upright. She was gasping, lost in the stimulation, completely in his thrall.

“Will you let Papa have his way with you, dolcezza?” he asked, his voice dripping with honey.

She nodded, enraptured, staring up at him through heavy-lidded eyes.

“Ah-ah… Words. Use them. I need to hear you say it. Or I stop, si?”

“Yes! Yes, please. Please Papa,” she whimpered. “Anything you want.”

“Anything?” His lips were at her ear again: “Be careful what you wish for, gattina.”

He backed off of her, taking hold of her hand and making his way off the dance floor and out of the Chapel entirely. She clutched at his hand with both of hers, staggering behind him in a daze. He sliced his way through the crowd expertly, as if he were intimately familiar with the layout of the building, leading her down the main hallway and through one of the back doors that led outside. The chill of the night air hit her overheated skin and set her shivering, but nothing but this man would tame the heat inside of her.

He led her to the old greenhouse that stood a few feet away. It was dilapidated and overgrown, with weeds and vines making their way inside through the broken windows. But there was privacy here, light streaking in from the main building providing enough illumination to see, yet still enough shadow to conceal them from view.

Once the door was open, he led her inside first. She stood breathless as he shut the door and turned to her. His face was half shadow, half light, the stark contrast only accentuated by the skull paint he wore. His one white eye practically glowed as he approached her, slowly, like a predator. It was equal parts terrifying and arousing. She instinctively backed away with each step he took toward her, even though she wanted to be ravaged by him. The thrill of the chase…

“You said you’d do anything,” he reminded her, taunting her as continued to approach and she kept stepping backward.

“Yes Papa,” she whispered, “And I will.”

They were quickly approaching the far wall of the greenhouse that was shared with the Abbey proper, made of stone bricks instead of glass. He picked up his pace, reaching out to her as her back hit the wall. Instead of touching her, he clamped his hands onto the brick, one on either side of her head, trapping her there while he stared down at her with a burning gaze, his pupils blown black with lust.

"So beautiful," he whispered, “Un giocattolo così grazioso per me.”

She was entranced by his eyes, only looking away to glance down at his full, parted lips, anticipating the kiss that had yet to come. It was a tease now, his lips so close to hers, his body pressing her hard against the wall so she could feel the large bulge of his cock against her thigh. Wholly intoxicated by the weight of him, the scent of leather and smoky spice, she couldn’t bear the wait any longer. She grabbed hold of the cravat hanging from his neck and wrapped it twice around her right hand, using the leverage to pull his lips to hers. It was a bruising kiss, hard and rough, wanton and sloppy and desperate. Her other hand went to the back of his head to hold him there against her lips. They were both groaning into each other’s mouths, knowing that this was only a prelude to more pleasure.

Finally, his hands were on her body, dragging the thin straps of her dress off her shoulders before tugging the bodice down to expose her breasts to him. The punishing kisses continued as he explored her flesh, his gloved hands covering her breasts, squeezing them, teasing each already-hardened nipple between a thumb and forefinger. He pried his lips away from hers, sucking and biting his way down her neck to the hollow of her throat before licking a stripe down over the swell of her breasts and taking each nipple into his mouth in turn, swirling around them with his tongue. She was whimpering, shuddering under his ministrations.

“Such sweet sounds you make for me,” he murmured against her skin, nibbling kisses back up across her chest to her face, eye to eye with her again. “But do you think I can make you scream, hmmm? Will you cry out my name when you cum for me?” He kissed her hard, sucking at her lower lip and nipping it with his teeth.

“Yes, Papa,” she said, her breath shaking.

He smiled wickedly, “Good girl.” He reached for her dress again, taking hold of the material bunched up under her breasts and sliding it further past her waist and over her hips until it slipped down her legs and landed in a pool at her feet. His eyes tracked the fabric as it fell but quickly darted back to hers once he saw that she was completely bare underneath it. “Well, well, you did come to play tonight.” The gloved hands were running all over her naked skin now, buttery smooth and hot. He kissed her once more and leaned in to whisper in her ear: “No more teasing. Spread your legs.”

She obeyed without hesitation and he wasted no time, expertly sliding the fingers of his right hand between her legs and into the soft folds that were already soaked in anticipation. The feel of the leather there was delicious, unlike anything she had experienced before. It had her moaning immediately. His left hand gripped her under the chin, his thumb and fingers on either side of her neck applying light pressure… with the promise of more. He tilted her chin up, forcing her to maintain eye contact with him.

“So wet for me already,” he purred, his fingers making contact with her clit, stroking and teasing. “So, so needy. You came here to get fucked tonight, didn’t you?” She gasped as he easily slid one finger inside of her, then a second a moment later. “Is this what you wanted, tesoro?” His thumb was on her clit now, applying sweet pressure there while his fingers pumped in and out of her at a languid pace.

She arched her back off of the wall, pressing herself into him, her eyes fluttering shut in blissful pleasure. His grip around her throat suddenly tightened.

“Eyes open,” he ordered. She complied. “You didn’t answer me. I asked you a question.”

“Y-yes Papa,” she stammered, “I… I wanted this.”

“Is this all you want?” He rubbed her clit harder.

She was getting close, the tension building heavy in her core. “Oooh….” she whined, “N-n-no”

He brought his face right up to hers again, their eyes locked. “Tell me. Tell me what you want, and perhaps I will give it to you.”

“I want…” she gasped, “I want you to fuck me. I want your cock.”

His eye contact was unwavering. “Good girls say ‘please.’”

“Please… P-p-please, Papa,” she begged.

“Mmmmm,” he cooed, finally satisfied with her reply, “I like the sound of you begging, dolcezza. I like it very much.” His fingers continued to work her as he slowly lowered himself to his knees, trailing light kisses down her body as he moved. “You will have this cock.” He lapped at her breast. “I will fuck you and make you mine.” His tongue swept from her sternum to her belly button. “But first, I want to taste you.”

He knelt between her legs, his fingers still buried deep inside of her. His free hand gripped her thigh and lifted her leg up and over his shoulder to ease access to her dripping wet heat. His thumb left her clit to be replaced with his tongue, at first lapping softly down through her folds to her entrance then back up to swirl around the center of her pleasure. He moaned at the taste of her, the vibration sending shockwaves through her.

“Papa!” she cried out, beyond caring if anyone heard.

That was the response he wanted. He moaned again, leaning his shoulder further into her, lifting her leg higher to press her harder into the wall, his hand firmly on her ass. She was completely at his mercy. His fingers went deeper, twisting, looking for that sweet spot inside of her to make her come undone. When she gasped and shuddered, he knew he had found it. He continued to tease it and sucked her clit into his mouth.

She couldn’t take much more. She had been on the verge of her orgasm before he even put his mouth on her, and now it was the point of no return. It was just too good - his fingers and his tongue worked her in ways she had never experienced, but somehow exactly as she needed. She slid her hands into his hair, grabbing fistfuls of it and holding on while she rocked her hips back and forth in time with his tongue, moaning shamelessly. He encouraged her, the hand on her ass supporting her as she chased her climax.

“Papa, Papa.. please don’t stop. Don’t stop!” Her legs shook as the tension within her finally snapped. “Papa… fuck! Jesus fucking Christ…” she swore and wave after wave of pleasure rolled through her, her hips undulating in time with his tongue as he worked her through it, unrelenting. He did not stop until he had wrung every last whimper and gasp out of her and she was a panting, trembling mess.

He removed his fingers from her gently, and slid them into his mouth, sucking away the wetness as he stood, humming with satisfaction. He took her into his embrace, one arm around her waist and one on the back of her neck, holding her through each shattered breath as she came down from the ecstatic high. “Mmmm, deliziosa. Così buono. Una ragazza così brava per me,” he whispered praise in her ear. His lips found hers, capturing her in a feverish kiss.

She could taste herself on his lips, and it thrilled her. She wanted more. She wanted all of him. She wanted to make him squirm and shudder as he had done to her. She broke off the kiss, using her tongue to swipe his slick-coated chin clean, then slid her tongue back into his mouth. He groaned, rolling his hips into her, pushing her back upon the wall, his cock painfully hard and straining against the seams of his skin-tight pants.

Before he could ask, or command, she was on her knees before him. Her hands gripped the front of his thighs and she leaned forward to place a sweet, gentle kiss on the bulge in his pants. She felt him tense up, a strangled “Fuck,” escaping his lips. She slid her hands down to his knees, up the back of his thighs, then splayed out her fingers to grab his ass and give it a good squeeze. Her hands lingered there as she nuzzled into his crotch, earning another groan from him. She looked up at him and saw his head tilted back, his eyes shut, enjoying the way she was fondling him.

The fastening of his pants was laced up like a corset and tied in a bow. She took the end of the string between her teeth and pulled to untie it, before walking her fingers up and across his waistband to work at loosening the lacing. He sighed as it came undone, no doubt relishing the pressure release. He looked down at her then, and his hand came to the top of her head, his fingers weaving into her hair as she peeled the fabric away to free him from his confines. He was bare underneath and his cock sprang free as she pulled the waistband down to his thighs. She expected him to be big after feeling him grinding on her, but she was not prepared for the size revealed… thick, hard, and ready for her.

“Suck me, principessa,” he hissed, those hypnotic, mismatched eyes locking with hers again. It wasn’t an ask, it was an order.

With her eyes still on his, she opened her mouth and skimmed her tongue around the tip, lapping up the pre-cum that was already leaking. Her tongue swirled and licked before her lips parted around him, taking him in with a hint of suction. She flattened her tongue and bobbed up and down the shaft, slowly easing the length of him into her mouth while bracing her hands on his thighs. He inhaled sharply, his fingers gripping her hair tighter now. She moaned around him, savoring the heavy feel of him on her tongue, the taste of him, and the tension of her hair wrapped in his fist.

He was moaning too, his eyes transfixed on her mouth. He was nodding, encouraging, and vocal - “mmm-hmm” and “yes” and “good girl” slipping from his lips repeatedly - but he still let her control the pace. She worked him deeper, deeper, until she felt him hit the back of her throat. Then she did it again. And again. She held him there for as long as she could, before coming up for air and stroking his length with her tongue once more, over and over.

Now he was groaning with each thrust, feral and animalistic, knowing that she was capable of taking the full length of him. He grabbed her hands off his thighs, taking tight hold of her wrists and bringing her arms up over her head. He bucked his hips, pushing her back flat against the wall again and pinning her arms against it. She couldn’t move. She was trapped and at his mercy as he face-fucked her, rutting his cock as deep as he could down her throat, while she sputtered and gagged on him. She didn’t know how much more she could take.

Without warning, he withdrew from her mouth and pulled her up to her feet by her arms. He turned her to face the wall, his hands positioning hers flat against it before sliding down her body to her back, forcing her to bend at the waist and step her legs backward to assume the position. She knew what was coming next.

His left hand gripped her hip hard, the leather of his glove burning hot on her skin. With his other hand, he set his cock against her entrance, teasing the tip of it up and down her slit. She was already moaning in anticipation.

“This is what you wanted, yes?” he growled. “You want this cock inside you?”

“Yes, Papa. Please…”

“Then take it,” he snarled, pushing all the way into her with one quick thrust. It knocked the breath out of her.

But he didn’t move. He was still, buried to the hilt, giving her a moment to adjust to him. There was an initial hint of pain as she stretched to accommodate his size, but having him so deep inside was exquisite. She clenched around him, her walls throbbing. He leaned over her, his hand coming up to cover hers on the wall, his fingers curling around hers. He peppered quick kisses along her shoulders and the back of her neck. It was unexpectedly tender considering how he was using her just moments earlier…

Until he stood straight again, his hands at her waist, pulling his hips back slowly and then forward into her. His pace was slow and deliberate at first, each thrust dragging along the delicate bundle of nerves deep inside her that he had found with his fingers earlier. She matched his rhythm with her own, pushing back against his thrusts to hit that spot harder, just so.

He snapped his hips harder, his pace intensifying, a jumble of words and groans tumbling from his lips. “Yes dolcezza… yes… f-fuck! So good… brava…. Bellissima…” He wasn’t going to last long at this rate, and neither would she.

His hands left her waist, and in a moment returned. He was holding something soft and silky in his hand. A scarf - the blue cravat he had worn around his neck. Now it was sliding around hers. He laid it taut around her throat and pulled… not too hard, but hard enough to cut off her air. Her right hand went to her neck, trying to grab a hold of it, to loosen it to no avail. He had it wrapped around his fist, twisting it tighter with each thrust of his hips. Her head tilted back towards him, her back arched, and she was seeing stars, gasping for breath. And he was groaning like an animal, his pace frenzied. His free hand fell between her legs, his fingers finding her clit and stroking her hard.

“Cum,” he demanded, “Cum for me now.”

The lack of oxygen dizzied her, enhancing the pleasure in the most brutal and unexpected of ways. One last swipe at her clit and the orgasm slammed her, her hips jerking and her knees buckling in ecstasy.

“P-p-papa…” she choked out.

The scarf loosened and fell away. He leaned forward again, his chest on her back, nipping at her shoulder before biting down hard, sending more ripples of twisted euphoria through her. Both of his hands came to the wall, covering hers with his own as she tried to hold herself up. His hips stuttered, his thrusts erratic. “Mine,” he snarled through gritted teeth, “Mine.” One final, powerful thrust and he spilled inside of her, moaning in pleasure and release.

They lingered there for some time, he still leaning over her back, his hands still on hers, their fingers entwined. Breathless, panting, blissful. Soothing kisses across her back and shoulders, his tongue laving over the tender spot where he bit her.

Carefully, he straightened up, slipping out of her as gently as he could. She whimpered at the loss. He helped her stand, peeling her hands off the wall and massaging her palms and her arms to ease the strain. He turned her to face him and took her in his embrace, planting more kisses to her hands, her fingers, her throat, her mouth - everywhere that had endured his domination. She rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes as his hands caressed her body and he comforted her with whispered words of praise. “Such a good girl for me, principessa. Mia dolce ragazza. Amore. Mia Bella…”

He kissed her then, soft and sweet. Her hand went to his cheek as she deepened the kiss, his mustache tickling her upper lip before she pulled away, pressing her forehead to his.

“Copia…” she murmured.

She opened her eyes to look at him. It was no longer the skull-painted man. It was the Cardinal. Her Copia.

“Ti amo, Bella,” he whispered.

Izzy bolted upright in bed, gasping. She was covered in a sheen of sweat, her body tingling from the aftershocks of the orgasm she’d just had. She clutched at her throat as if the silk scarf was still choking her.

It took her several moments to come back to reality. The bedroom was dark. Poe was staring at her, annoyed at the interruption of his sleep. She was panting, her hands covering her face, rocking back and forth to soothe herself.

“Holy shit,” she whispered to herself. “HOLY SHIT.”

She flopped back down on her bed, taking a pillow from beside her and wrapping her arms around it as she curled up in the fetal position and tried to calm herself.

“It was just a dream. It was just a dream. It was just a dream,” she repeated out loud. As if that was going to change anything.

She knew it in her gut, but this all but confirmed it: the skull-painted man she had dreamt about was Copia.

[shishagoods745]

The Ultimate Guide to Hookah Starter Kits: Your Path to the Perfect Smoke Session

Hookah, also known as a water pipe or shisha, has been a popular social activity for centuries. Its origins can be traced back to the Middle East, but it has now gained worldwide popularity. If you're new to the world of hookah and want to embark on this flavorful journey, a hookah starter kit is the ideal way to begin. In this blog, we'll explore the essentials of a hookah starter kit and guide you on how to get started with your very own hookah smoking experience.

What Is a Hookah Starter Kit?

A hookah starter kit is a comprehensive package that includes all the essential components needed to start enjoying hookah. These kits are designed for beginners, making it easier to set up and enjoy your first hookah session without the hassle of purchasing individual components. Let's dive into the key components typically found in a hookah starter kit:

Hookah Base: The base, often made of glass, serves as the water chamber. It not only adds aesthetic appeal to your hookah but also plays a crucial role in filtering and cooling the smoke.

Stem and Shaft: The stem connects the base to the bowl and hose. It's usually made of stainless steel, brass, or other durable materials. The shaft contains the downstem, which allows smoke to travel from the bowl into the water.

Bowl: The bowl holds the flavored tobacco (shisha) and charcoal. It can be made of various materials like clay, ceramic, or silicone.

Hose and Mouthpiece: The hose is used for inhaling the smoke, and the mouthpiece is what you place in your mouth to enjoy the smoke. Some kits include multiple hoses for group sessions.

Charcoal: Most starter kits come with quick-lighting charcoal, which is convenient for beginners. You'll need these to heat the shisha and produce smoke.

Tongs: Tongs are essential for handling hot charcoal safely and for packing the shisha into the bowl.

Foils and Screens: These are used to cover the bowl, creating separation between the charcoal and shisha, allowing for even heating.

Flavor and Coals: Some starter kits may include a variety of shisha flavors to get you started. Experiment with different flavors to find your favorites.

Setting Up Your Hookah

Once you have your hookah starter kit, it's time to set up your hookah for an enjoyable smoke session. Here's a step-by-step guide:

Clean the Hookah: Before assembling, ensure all components are clean and free from residue from previous sessions.

Fill the Base: Add cold water to the base until it covers about 1-2 inches of the downstem. This helps cool and filter the smoke.

Assemble the Hookah: Connect the stem, shaft, and hose to the base securely.

Prepare the Shisha: Fluff up the shisha tobacco and place it in the bowl. Use your fingers or a fork to ensure it's evenly distributed.

Cover the Bowl: Place a piece of foil or a screen over the bowl and poke small holes to allow airflow.

Light the Charcoal: Ignite the quick-lighting charcoal using a lighter or a charcoal burner. Wait until it's fully red and glowing.

Place the Charcoal: Carefully place the hot charcoal on the foil or screen, ensuring it's evenly distributed over the shisha.

Wait and Enjoy: Let the charcoal heat the shisha for a few minutes. Once it's producing smoke, start inhaling through the hose and enjoy your hookah session.

Tips for a Great Hookah Experience

Experiment with different shisha flavors to find your favorites. Manage heat by adding or removing charcoal to control the intensity of the smoke. Keep the water level in the base consistent for a smoother smoke. Clean your hookah regularly to maintain its performance and flavor purity. Conclusion

A hookah starter kit is your ticket to the world of relaxing and flavorful hookah sessions. With the right kit and proper setup, you can enjoy this social and cultural tradition with friends or solo. Remember to take your time, experiment with flavors, and always prioritize safety when handling hot charcoal. Enjoy your hookah journey responsibly, and savor the moments of relaxation and socialization it brings.

[mokshabongs]

Understanding the Basics: Hookah pots, often crafted from various materials like glass, stainless steel, or brass, play a pivotal role in the overall hookah experience. The price of a hookah pot typically varies based on factors such as the material it's made of, craftsmanship, size, and design intricacies. Buy Hookah, known for their aesthetic appeal and smooth smoke delivery, often come at a higher price point, while stainless steel or brass options can offer a more affordable yet durable alternative.

[amydeluxeuk]

Amy Deluxe UK Online Shop

The Amy Deluxe UK Online Shop is the perfect place to find a wide range of brass shishas from this popular brand. The online shop offers a variety of shishas in different sizes and designs, so you're sure to find one that suits your preferences. The shop also offers a range of accessories, including hoses, bowls, and mouthpieces, to enhance your shisha smoking experience.

Why Choose a Brass Shisha?

Brass shishas are popular among shisha enthusiasts because they are durable and long-lasting. Brass is a strong metal that can withstand the heat generated during a shisha smoking session, making it the perfect material for shisha equipment. Additionally, brass shishas are available in a range of unique designs, making them a great choice for those who want to add a touch of style to their smoking experience.

Why Choose Amy Deluxe?

Amy Deluxe is a trusted brand in the shisha industry, known for producing high-quality brass shishas that are both functional and stylish. Their shishas are made from durable materials and are designed to last for years, making them a great investment for anyone who enjoys shisha smoking. Additionally, the company offers a range of unique designs, so you can find a shisha that suits your personal style.