Arcane Tangle ch. 2 [MF] [fantasy] [magic university] [long] [plot] [world building] [character development] [sex rituals]

*This is a third and final chapter of my longish fantasy story. It says chapter 2 in the title because of general incompetence. In my profile you can find a link to the full story, the previous chapters now also illustrated with lewd pics.*

Niko’s foot was tapping under the table. Diane was actually as nervous as he was, though it was harder to spot.

“You seemed so sure yesterday,” he started again. “You said you only needed a few more hours.”

“I know.” It was early in the evening, and the library’s gigantic reading room was quieter than usual. Far in its front, Ms Marin sat still behind the reference desk. “My reasoning, it was just… it was flawed from the beginning.”

She’d corrected the calculations in her ritual. They’d given it a furtive try, in the corridor behind the Great Conservatory. She hadn’t been surprised when it failed.

“So…” he was determined to grasp at the last straws of hope. “You have no other ideas?”

Her eyes stayed on Ms Marin for a moment, uncertain, and then dropped to the desk.

“Sorry,” she said.

It was only then that he realised that she was, in fact, as nervous as he was. His foot stopped the tapping.

“No, I didn’t mean, like…” He trailed off.

“I have no idea how to fix this. And we can be found out at any moment. I have to straight up ask her to lend me a real sex magic book.”

He eyeballed the librarian.

“And you really think she’ll do it?”

“I think she will. I don’t know.” There was a long silence. She sighed and stood up. “I’m not going to mention your name, maybe I’ll just say that…”

“Hey.” He stood up beside her. “Look, we’ve made this mess together. I for sure don’t know how to get out of this, so… yeah, at least I’ll go with you.”

She hated every step that took her closer to the unsuspecting Ms Marin. In the librarian’s eyes, she was an exemplary, self-assured star student. In Niko’s eyes, she was an exemplary, self-assured secret lover. Now she’d have to ask for Ms Marin’s help, and both these images were going to die. Niko’s presence near her both reassured her and made it worse.

They reached the desk, and Diane quietly cleared her throat. Ms Marin looked up, and her teeth were bared to the gums in a friendly smile.

“Good evening, Diane! How are you doing?”

“Great, thank you.” She glanced at Niko, and continued. “I want to ask for your help…” Ms Marin’s smile widened.

“Of course! Got an essay to write?”

“No. It’s… it’s a practical problem.” Her voice was calm, but by her side her finger and her thumb were rubbing viciously against each other. “It’s also, ah… it’s a bit discreet.”

Ms Marin looked taken aback just a little.

“Not sure if I can help you there. I haven’t studied discrete calculus. But my colleague over there, he…”

“No, I mean. Discreet, as in…” Diane shut her eyes. Just get it over with. “I did some channelling wrong. My magic got stuck in… in my focus.”

“Oh my. Yes, this happens sometimes. Can you show me the focus?”

Diane took a deep breath, and indicated Niko with a weak wave.

“It’s him. My magic is stuck in him. This is Niko, my classmate.”

“Hello,” Niko said, in a flat voice.

Ms Marin’s expression went blank, and she looked between the two students several times. And then, slowly, absolute horror dawned on her face.

“You mean to tell me that…” She hissed at Diane. “You mean to tell me that you performed blood magic on your classmate?”

“What? I—”

“Good grief, you spilled his vital fluids for the sake of magic? This… I…”

“No!” Diane hissed back, and lowered her voice. Several heads seemed to be turning curiously in their direction. “I did not spill his vital fluids!” She looked into Ms Marin’s uncomprehending eyes, and then corrected herself. “I did not spill his blood, anyway.” Ms Marin blinked. “It was sex magic. We did sex magic. It… it sort of went wrong at the end.”

The librarian just stared for a moment, gas light glinting in her dainty glasses. Then she rose up and turned to Niko, and her expression of horror smoothly faded into one of outrage.

“Young man, did you talk her into this?!” Somehow, she was shouting at a whisper.

“I…” Niko replied.

“You should be ashamed of yourself! I can’t believe that—”

“It was my idea,” Diane butted in. “I talked him into all of this, and—”

“Well, no, actually,” Niko said, a little hurt, “I did a lot of planning too, if you recall—”

“No, you’re talking about before, when we had sex in my room, but when we did it in the attic it was actually—”

They were cut off by Ms Marin slamming her knuckles on the desk. When she spoke, there was sharpness in her voice that you would never expect from her.

“Wait here, both of you.”

She stormed off towards a staff-only oaken door far off to the side, and her loud footsteps receded in some corridor beyond.

“Shit…” Niko whispered. They looked at each other and said nothing. Ms Marin could easily be on her way to fetch the Proctor Superior right now. The silence of this huge glinting space was in this moment overwhelming.

But presently the footsteps sounded again, and Ms Marin reappeared alone. In her hands she carried a large old tome bound in brown leather. It made a very angry slam when she placed it on the desk, and at this point Niko and Diane saw its title, embossed and in faded gold paint. *The Practicall Guide-book to Safe Sex Magic*.

“Alright then.” Ms Marin attempted to open it, but at that a thin thread of scarlet light manifested wrapped around it, binding the covers shut. She gave a furious snarl and snapped her fingers, and the ward shattered; and then she rapidly leafed through the freed pages. “Here, page 207. This is the ritual you want. It will require you to…” She sighed and crossed her arms, and looked away. “It will require you to perform another… to have intercourse again. Which is deplorable, but there is no other way on a short notice.”

Both Niko and Diane breathed out in relief.

“Thank you so much, Ms Marin,” Diane whispered. “I’ll return the book just as soon as…”

“What?” The librarian’s gaze snapped back to her. “No, you can’t take it out of the library. Absolutely not.” From one of the drawers she pulled out a large iron key. “Follow me.”

Behind the reference desks there was a row of white-painted doors which led to the library’s private study rooms. Ms Marin unlocked the rightmost one and ushered them inside.

Compared to the luxurious open space that they’d left this was a very simple room, though quite large. Its white walls had simple plaster embossing, and it was furnished with a simple table, chairs, bookshelves, and a heart, and an armour stand tucked in the corner. It had large windows but was dim with the evening, and chilly.

“There are ritual supplies in that chest by the wall,” Ms Marin said. “All that you need. Keep it quiet and, for goodness’ sake, clean up after yourselves.”

Diane looked around, a little dazed. Niko nervously rubbed the back of his head.

“Thank you,” he said. “We’re really grateful.”

Ms Marin responded with a short disgusted shriek, shoved the key into his hand, and almost slammed the door on the way out.

In the half-dark Niko and Diane looked at each other, whites of eyes like crescent moons in the night.

“I mean,” Niko said, “this could have gone much worse.”

Diane gave him a stiff nod. After that first wave of relief, her feeling of humiliation now burned her insides. At least she’d soon get her magic back.

They locked the door and dropped drapes over the windows and made a small fire in the hearth. Then they sat at the table, and even through her distress Diane felt an excited tingle. Laid in front of her was an actual, unabridged, and uncensored compendium of sex magic.

“Wow,” Niko whispered. He opened the cover, and the thin parchment-like pages gave a soft, enticing rustle.

They both sat at the edges of their seats as he slowly leafed through them. The book’s language was antiquated, but the illustrations as vivid as ever. Their eyes drank in the shifting subjects. Healing magics. Sexual energies. Positions of power. Sex magic for practical use. Sex magic for pure fun. Enchantments and enhancements and illusions and all the senses at play. Great eternal fucking heavens above.

“This is incredible,” she whispered.

“It’s…” They both stopped and stared at the page that he’d just opened. Rituals of invitation. On the adjacent page, a full-colour engraving of a succubus and an incubus, rendered a lot more lovingly than it was strictly necessary, the pair nude and gorgeous and absolutely intoxicating even as ink on paper.

Niko was the first to manage to look away, and he snorted at her sparkling eyes and gaping mouth.

“Have we found something for your bucket list, Diane?”

“I. I never…” She blinked, and rather shakily turned to the next page. “My daring has its limits, you know.”

It thus took them a while to finally reach page 207. There they found a diagram of a runic circle, and several paragraphs of instruction.

“It’s a summoning ritual?” he asked, surprised.

“Apparently so.” She furrowed her brow. “You… you call in wisps for some reason?”

The instructions were as follows:

*Take white Chalk of fine grain. Draw on even Floor the Circle of Runes presented herein, causing it to be no less than seven Feet in diameter. Place seven Candles of cleer beeswax outside the Circle with even spaces betwixt them and set them alight. Place a Censer by the Gebo Rune to burn Frankincense.*

*The Person in whom the Magic is entangled shal be the Master of the Ritual. The Master shal enter the Circle and entreat the naturall Wysps of the Land to partake in the lovers’ Communion.*

*The Master shal call their Lover into the Circle. The Master’s right wrist shal be bound to their Lover’s left with fine thread of red colour no more than a foot long. The Master shal then govern both of their Passions with a great deale of Discretion and Skill. They shal govern the Excitement untill the Wysps change their colour to that of a Peacocks tail, which shal portend that they are well Pleased, and their Energie levell is great. The Master shal then cause both themselves and their Lover to achieve Release at the same time. The Fielde of Magic now being truely strong betwixt them, all Energie shal flow free as in one Body, and in this wonderfull way fall into its Nature-ordained Place.*

Niko blinked as the ritual’s logic dawned on him. Yes. So you have one body with two magical fields wrapped around it, and another with none. How do you make the extra field jump back where it belongs? You arrange for the two bodies to become one, magically speaking, like two bright lights brought so close together that the eye can’t tell them apart. In that moment, the two fields will exist not within one of these bodies, but within their indistinguishable union. And then, once the bodies drift apart, each field will align to their proper one, and they too will neatly separate, and all will be fine.

But how to you arrange for two bodies to become one? A shared simultaneous orgasm would be a very powerful moment of togetherness, almost powerful enough to do the trick, but not quite. This is why the wisps are summoned. Wisps feed on magic, and they also notoriously ease its flow, like water does to an electric current. If they are invited to feed on the sexual energy, they will also make it flow freely, and turn the two lovers into practically a single magical being.

The solution was unbelievably dirty and elegant at the same time. The first couple that had pulled it off must have found it hilarious that it’d really worked.

“This actually makes sense,” he said.

“It does.” Diane looked at the book with expression-less eyes, and sighed. “I should have figured that out.”

“What do you mean?”

“There is no complicated principle here that I didn’t know before. If I was just smarter about my design, I could have come up with this.”

“Oh, come on.” He tapped her on the shoulder. “Let’s give this a try.”

They flung the carpet away, revealing naked floorboards in the middle of the room. The chest did contain all the things they needed, even the red thread. They carefully copied the circle, thick soft chalk leaving solid bright markings on the floor. They lit the candles and the censer. They stood side by side with their backs to the table, and pondered the completed ritual site.

“So, uh.”

“Yes.”

It felt so very strange to undress. They did it separately, right next to each other, and it was like undressing for an examination at a doctor’s office, not for sex, every undone button awkward. Something was off. They both felt it as they stood completely undressed and glanced at each other. It’s okay, they both thought. Nature will take its course.

He entered the circle, cool floorboards creaking under bare feet. She observed his moves. His body was very beautiful in the half-light, muscles softly brought out and thin gooseflesh covering his skin. Yet there was something very fragile about him, a lone naked boy in a large cool room. Well, she felt rather fragile too. It will be fine.

He cleared his throat and extended out his hands, palms up. His heartbeat quickened. He whispered a quick invocation – a regular one, like you’d use when lost in a forest, pleading for a wisp to show you the way.

(By the way, it is a shockingly common misconception that wisps are only found in the wild. Scholars say that they are actually very plentiful where the humans are, found among brick and mortar just as easy as among brook and moorland. They are nature spirits, after all, and humans are, to the bone, natural.)

They saw them in the corners of their eyes. Little lights like pale candleflame, slowly filling the room, dozens of them. Gently floating now and almost motionless, strange ancient minds brought by a promise of a feast on human energy. He closed his eyes. It was now up to his Skill & Discretion to fulfil that promise. Oh boy.

“Diane?” He beckoned at her with his hand, which trembled a little. She came into the circle, subdued somewhat but tenacious, looking him straight in the eye, expectant and devastatingly gorgeous. An awareness crept into the back of his neck that her entire future might depend on him not fucking this up.

He breathed in. There was nothing to fuck up, come on. They’d made each other cum many times before. They had a decent chemistry. He tied their wrists together with the red thread. He made his lips form a smile.

They stood still unsure what to do next, and after an awkward moment lay on the floor. He initiated a kiss, and it now went a little smoother. Their bodies understood this: the touch, the scent, the warmth, skin on skin, breath on breath. Hearts beating heavier. The swelling, the hardening, the moistening.

He entered her, and it was… nice. It was okay. It was fine. Their nerves were pleased with the events unfolding. Only… there wasn’t this happy jolt that her body usually did, the instinctive arching of the back to take him deeper. There was no trilling in his thighs as his body ached for hers. The stomach muscles were just a little too tense for the butterflies. There was pleasure without joy, the minds, for some reason, forgetting to forget themselves.

All of sudden he felt something strange in his side, as if someone was slowly brushing against his skin with a static-charged feather. He opened his eyes, and saw himself engulfed in eerie soft white light. The wisps had all come closer and were now crowding in the air around them. The most enterprising one touched down on his skin, was now searching for that energy that it had been promised. Another one brushed by Diane’s thigh, and she jolted in surprise. They at each other, illuminated by this vaguely judging congregation. They should have expected that the wisps wouldn’t stay away, to be honest. I mean, sex magic is so much about touch.

Alright, he thought. Better get going before they get bored. He thrust his hips a couple of times. Diane wrapped her legs around him, and tried to ignore the wisps altogether. He looked distracted. Damnit. A boy that’s dick-deep inside you shouldn’t look distracted. Was she right, was her appeal really gone now?

He thought in this moment that she looked somewhat disapproving. Shit. He mentally assured the wisps that he did in fact know how to please this girl, that it was just a momentary hitch. She made her back arch and faked a moan. She mentally assured the wisps that she usually turned him on a lot more.

His thoughts raced. Maybe they were in a wrong position? Maybe he should be using one of those elaborate Positions of Power, and not this amateurish boy-on-girl kissy squeezy shambles? He didn’t know. He was trying his best. He was just posing as a good lover and hoping to get away with it—

Another wisp touched his back, and suddenly everything went very wrong. He yelped as the spirit recoiled and bolted away, across his skin with a sharp stinging dash, and disappeared somewhere above the table like a shooting star. All the others fluttered for a moment, and then faded away almost all at once. Diane and Niko were left all alone, on the floor, inside their circle of chalk.

“Shit!” he hissed, and sat up. The red thread at their wrists snapped. She sat up too, and grabbed her shoulders in her hands.

“What happened?”

“I think they… they didn’t enjoy this too much.”

“We’ll try again,” she snapped. “We’ll try again,” she added bleakly, fingertips digging into her skin.

“Yeah…” A drop of sweat was trickling down his back. He wiped it away and was about to say something, when he caught sight of his fingers smudged dark red, and gave a dismayed groan.

“Shit,” she said. “Let me see…”

The wisp had retreated with such violent speed that it left a shallow gash on Niko’s skin, a thin line that here and there was blossoming with dark droplets. She instinctively reached for it to cast a balm spell, remembered, and sighed. This ritual was going so badly. And some sex on the floor was all that really needed to be done. Just a few days ago they did magic by having sex on the floor, and it went absolutely amazing. Too amazing, even. And now…?

“Hold on,” she said. She walked over to the supply chest. There were some paper towels there, for clean-ups. What else are you supposed to put on a cut when you have no healing magic? Was it rubbing alcohol? The only alcohol in here was a bottle of sacrificial red wine. Whatever, it was only a scratch.

He felt deflated as he sat there, and let her gently pat the gash with a dampened towel. This whole situation seemed like an idea from some erotic fantasy. The pretty girl from school has lost her power! Only by having sex with you she can get it back!

But living out a fantasy in real life brought into it all his real-life issues, and circumstances, and the possibility of failure. It was turning it into a nightmare. A nature spirit had just found his sexual energy so displeasing that it fled in terror. Sex fantasies are a lot better if they remain not real.

The towel was cold on his skin. He didn’t even want to think what she thought of him now, useless all throughout this thing and useless even here.

Her touch ceased, and he reluctantly turned to face her; but her expression was not at all what he was expecting. She was sitting with her shoulders slouched, eyes down on the red-tipped wad in her hands, looking defeated.

“Diane?”

“Just give me a moment,” she whispered, and sat with her back against the wall. A few seconds passed in complete silence, weighed down by unsaid things. He looked around. From the supply chest, a shining dark neck of a bottle was sticking out.

A quiet squelching sound made her look up. She saw the bottle of sacrificial wine arc gently through the room and land in Niko’s hand. He popped out the cork with a bit of forceful telekinesis and took a swig. Then he scuttled over, sat next to her, and offered the bottle to her.

Yes, actually. Very much yes.

She took two deep chugs. The wine was neither very bad nor very good. She sighed.

Well, he saw through her now. She had always been aware that this self-assured image that she gave everyone impressed him a lot. Maybe that she even intimidated him a little. Which, to be utterly honest, made her feel safer in this whole affair. Always good to have a little leverage over your partner in crime.

They mutely passed the bottle several times, making good progress through it. She now felt that she had had enough to speak out. She thought how she was going to formulate her regret at being such a flop recently.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

She squinted, and took the bottle away from her mouth.

“What?”

He just watched his fingernails.

“I know I haven’t been very useful through this. I’m trying my best.”

At no point had it occurred to her that he was blaming himself for anything. Okay, an instinct said, that’s actually not bad because she can keep up her cool demeanour, and console him, and escape this situation unscathed and invulnerable!

The instinct got lost in the faint wine fog around her brain, and didn’t make it to her mouth in time.

“What are you talking about. This whole thing is just a series of fuck-ups from me.”

He was a little startled both by what she said and by her language. He just plodded on.

“Look, I know I’m not some seven-star sex mage or whoever wrote that book. And I’m not as… outstanding as you, but…”

“Outstanding? Come on, I’m fucking nobody.”

His mouth pouted as he processed that.

“Okay, you lost me there.”

She pondered all the thorny emotion that had built up within her. Okay, then. They were sitting together naked and tipsy, and an assembly of spirits had just effectively declared that they sucked at sex. Fuck everything. This was the time and place to trust the boy.

She abruptly leaned against the wall, ragdoll-like, and just reflected aloud about the past few days. About Louise, about aristocrats in general, about how they’d always be above her, about how her talent at magic was the most important thing that she had, and so how disheartening it was to fail at something important; and, having taken a couple more swigs, also how ego-boosting it always was to see desire in his eyes, and how much it would suck to not be attractive to him anymore. He was silent as he listened with widening eyes, and took in this emotion that he’d never seen her let herself express. Anger. Anger at herself.

“So, there you go. I don’t feel particularly outstanding right now. I feel like a nobody.”

He didn’t respond at first; just blew into bottle’s mouth like into a sad bassoon.

“If you’re a nobody, then what am I?” She gave him a puzzled look. “I come from an average family in an average town. If I try really hard, then maybe, just maybe, I can get ahead far enough in life to end up where you are now. So, if you’re a nobody…”

She scowled. “You’ve made it to a leading university. You’re doing just fine, aren’t you? I didn’t mean to—”

“Yeah, doing just fine. Now, look at you. You’re the best at pretty much fucking everything we do, you’re from a good family, you’re gorgeous as hell, and you’re still frustrated?” He gave her a smirk. “My average-person brain is confused. What would you have to be to be happy with yourself, a Duchess of Cillia?”

She accepted the bottle back and took a swig, and then scuttled up to him with her eyes narrowed, and a smirk of her own.

“Your humble average-person brain is confused? Your brain, which is so worried about you not being a seven-star legendary sex magician? Is that so?”

“I mean…” he squirmed, and she didn’t let go.

“What would you feel if someone told you you’re an average lover?”

“Well, I hope you’re not about to say that.”

“See? Do you have any more wisdom to share?”

He blushed and looked away in dismay. “I mean… but this is sex.” His eyes fell on the armour on the stand, the shiny knight of the days of old. “There’s just… there’s just some things where guys expect themselves to perform, you know.”

She sighed, and her smirk faded. She rested her head on his shoulder, resigned.

“Yeah. Perform all the time, and aspire all the time, and it is never never never never enough.” They were quiet for a moment. “Why are we like this, Niko?”

“Pride, I guess.”

She chuckled. “It’s a wonder that the wisp from the amulet never yelled at us.”

“Yeah. I suppose.” He pondered the glint at the tip of the knight’s halberd, and then suddenly straightened up, throwing her off. “Oh, shit! It absolutely did yell at me!”

“What?”

“I was in the park the other night, and… and I was kind of having a self-pity session like we’re having right now.” Her eyebrows twitched. “Anyway, I was just telling myself that I’m useless at magic and should just go sail away or something, when this… not a voice really, more like a mental energy… it entered my thoughts…”

“What did it say?”

He blinked, trying to put the primal thoughts to words, and then shrugged.

“That I should shut the fuck up and believe in myself, I suppose.” She laughed.

“What a helpful little twat.”

“No wonder that the House of Cillia fell.”

“Listen to it, though. You should feel better about yourself.”

“You’re the one to talk.” He bit his lip and breathed in. “I think I’m kind of using you to feel better about myself. Like, if I can make *that* girl all wet and bothered, then I’m not all that bad, right?”

“Well, I’m using you the same way. I said that already.”

“You think it’s healthy?”

“No idea.”

One of the candles spluttered, and clear hot wax trickled onto the floor. They sat in silence for a while, the bottle sometimes changing hands, and they both felt a weight lifting off them. Must have been the wine.

“Maybe our culture is right, you know? Maybe we’d be a lot happier if we forgot all about it? Only had sex in the dark, thrice a year, with our spouses, to make children? Took lots of cold baths and ate lots of oatmeal? Saved ourselves this insecure validation nonsense?”

She leaned in, inhaled the scent of his skin.

“Would you give it up, then? For happiness and cold baths?”

His hand reached and caressed her collarbone. “Would be smart.” She handed him the almost-empty bottle, and he drank. “So, am I an average lover?”

“An average lover to one person is an amazing lover to another.”

“Did you just dodge the question?” She dug her chin into the pit above his collarbone. “Ow!”

“How dare you,” she muttered. “So many times I came hard for you like a squeaky idiot, and you dare ask me that.”

He couldn’t help to grin. “Just making sure.” He brought the bottle to his lips and turned it bottom-up.

“I’m not made to have a duchy and cold baths and a peace of mind. I’d rather die choking on your cock.”

His throat gurgled and laughing he coughed out the last of the wine, which trickled down his chin and his chest. He winced and looked around for the paper towel, but in this moment she straddled his thighs and brought her face really close to his.

“You know why you’re so amazing to me?” she asked.

“N… no?”

She didn’t answer, but instead leaned in and sucked on his wine-stained lip; and then she traced the spill down his chin, cleaning him up with her mouth.

“I absolutely adore,” she said finally, lifting up his chin and continuing to his neck, “how raw you get when we’re together. There’s nothing hotter—” he gasped, and his throat bobbed under her lips – “there’s nothing hotter than a wild side in a mild-mannered, soft-spoken boy.” She went lower and lower, and licked the wine off his chest. “And bringing this wild side out… it’s so…” her voice thickened into a growl. “So fucking pure.”

He breathed heavily. She was already at his underbelly.

“I’m mild-mannered?” he managed to ask.

“Mm.” She pushed into the soft flesh, and he winced and tensed up, and his lower abs pressed against her lips like a wall. “And also you’re a fierce creature. But that’s our secret.” Would you look at that, the slob even spilled some over his own cock. The cock that had been soft when she’d started, and now greeted her almost completely erect. All the more to lick.

Her tongue traced its path slowly along his shaft. This was such a good way to serve wine. Should be the standard, really. She made it all the way to the tip, and on an unstoppable whim she took him in her mouth, until his hardness pushed into the softness of her throat, until he plugged her to her satisfaction. She held him still for a moment, delighting in his taste, his heat, his heartbeat, his loud breath. Then with a loud slurp she let him go, and gave his cock a light swat that made him jump.

“There,” she said. “All cleaned up.”

He stared at her smile at a complete loss for words. Then he rallied, and leaned down. She raised her eyebrows. His lips moved as if to speak, but suddenly he changed his mind. He sprang up to his feet, stepped over her, and entered the ritual circle.

“Hey, idiots, come back here!” he said out loud.

(This is not a proper way to invoke wisps! As we’ll see in a moment it worked, but only because the sexual energy they had been promised was now crackling about the place. If you’re lost in the woods or whatever and want the wisps’ help, go with “O-ye-kind-spirits-of-nature” or another standard incantation that you’ve learned in elementary school, not with “hey idiots!”)

“Hey, are you going to pass on this!” He pointed to her with his hand. In the corners of the room, a few of the lights dimly reappeared. Oh, boy. He’s now going to praise her in front of a bunch of nature spirits. She stood up, clasped her hands behind her back, and approached the circle looking him dead in the eye.

“She’s the sexiest girl in the world! Even when she’s down. You have to be total morons if you don’t want to feel her cum. It’s the best thing.” She stopped right at the edge of the circle. Fire glittered in his eyes and on his teeth. He was tense, erect, trembling with want. There it was, his wild side. He took her hand and with a quick spell mended the red thread. She kept her face and posture perfectly still, though her mouth watered and her underbelly brimmed with anticipation. She was going to get fucked so hard once she entered that circle.

He licked his lips and continued. “Have you ever seen anyone this gorgeous?”

She did see more wisps show up, just before she closed her eyes and their wine-stained lips met in an aggressive kiss. Their free hands roamed, skin, hair. Their tied hands dived down, and she gave him several firm, goading strokes. He groaned into her mouth and his knees buckled, and suddenly they fell side by side on the floor inside the circle. The interrupted kiss resumed, more intense. She trapped his neck with her elbow. Through closed eyelids they saw the ever-increasing glow of the wisps, felt their flutter close by.

His tied hand dragged hers away from his cock and with entwined fingers they landed together on her mound. His knee kicked hers apart, and their fingers together parted her labia, and his cock slid right through them.

She opened her eyes with a soft gasp and found him looking at her, and his wild irises were aglitter with a hundred little spirits circling close around them like bees around spilled honey.

In this ghostly fluttering light she bared her teeth and growled, and her fingers slid circling her skin where they were joined, and took his along. He thrust. Energy was rising between them, a common rhythm from the chaos of their heartbeat. The pale wisps followed the current, from the small of the back up the spine. Some, completely alien to the concept of personal space, even got between them, up the stomach to the throat, leaving a tingling sensation on the skin. His thrusting grew faster and more forcible, and their breath broke into moaning.

Behind her desk Ms Marin straightened up, suspicious noises reaching her vigilant ears.

Her colleague to the side was bent over a ledger. In front of her, some dozen late-hour students were poring over their books. Ms Marin cleared her throat and shuffled her papers.

Maybe if they had been more sober and less turned on, they wouldn’t have forgotten themselves – but as it stood, there was no helping this. Their shared energy seized them, greater than the sum of its halves, and they had no choice but to flow with it. The nerves were ablaze, and every muscle fibre jolted with uncontrollable lust, and the warmth and the tension was too much to bear.

Suddenly he seized her wrists and slammed them rudely to the floor above her head, forcing her on her back. Her pinned body squirmed with overwhelming delight; her back arched, trying to offer him more, more and more and more. His cock slipped out of her, but he just grinded its bulging mass into her clit. He leaned down and caught her nipple in his mouth, his soft hair sweeping across her neck and breasts.

“Fuck!” she shouted. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! FUCK!”

Faking a very loud cough attack Ms Marin slid her chair away from her desk and headed to the staff kitchenette for a glass of water, and on her way cast a stealthy muffler spell on the study room’s door.

The wisps were in a feeding frenzy now, raw high-charged sex magic crackling through the two naked bodies on the floor. They flowed quick, grazing across the skin, lighting all nerves on the way, and their swarm was bright now and opalescent. All skin was exposed to their repeated sweeps. Niko whined in his throat as Diane writhed and squirmed under him. Her leg kicked out and knocked over one of the candles. Wax splattered their calves, and its stinging heat only stoked their roaring bliss.

“Gonna come,” she gasped, “gonna come.” He answered with a soft cry. The overwhelmed rational part of his brain now tried to figure out how to do that whole simultaneous orgasm thing, but it was the beast within her that now took over.

She sprung up from the floor, pushed him seated on his heels, almost tipping him over. She sat on his cock and rutted bodily against his tense muscles, her throat pressed against his and both trilling together. He looked at the world through a veil of blond hair, which got into his mouth and stuck to his tongue, and filled his sinuses with her scent. Through this veil he saw the lights, and the little spirits were flowing along the entire length of his body, and all that was mingled with her body fiercely working his glans. The pleasure was too much to bear – and so, he broke.

His voice shattered into short tearful gasps, and his hips fluttered on their own, and these signs surged up Diane’s spine, and the beast within her howled in triumph. Her clit, squeezed between their fingers and his cock, sent a shockwave through her, and again, and again, and it took all control away from her brain, and she clenched hard on his cock, just as it twitched and tensed and exploded with cum.

The wisps were a hurricane of many-coloured light, but Niko and Diane didn’t even see them anymore. In that moment their minds, forced to experience two orgasms at once, were completely gone. They were just two climaxing bodies squirming together and shiny with sweat, a shared whining discharge of pure primal force. They remained like this until the last of the tremors released their backs; and once that was finished, they collapsed together on the floorboards.

Around this wreckage still the little spirits whirled, a slowing and dimming dance. In a minute or so they too stopped and, their want satisfied, one by one quietly faded away.

Niko and Diane clung close, breathing heavily, each lost completely in the other’s trembling warmth. Neither wanted to break this hug. As the afterglow faded and unwelcome post-orgasm sobriety crept in, they both felt very raw, very revealed – and they both felt that they didn’t want to talk about this just now.

(They were sort of bad at this. They must be forgiven. They had had a rough week and a proper upbringing).

Finally she sighed and opened one eye. With one finger she pointed at a candle two feet away, and its flame went out. She then strained and focused, and the extinguished wick rekindled. She purred with approval.

“Did it work?” he muttered into her shoulder. He knew that it had. He just wanted to talk about something safe.

“Yes.” She stroked his chin, sat up, and exhaled. Everything was fine. Everything felt fine. He sat up too. He was a flushed mess, disordered hair covering his face, body sweaty, wet cock lolling heavily in his thigh. She smiled at the sight. She became aware of a stinging in her wrist.

The red thread which had connected them lay on the floor, singed and smouldering. Their wrists were marked with light burn marks. They stared, at their wrists, at the thread, at each other. He shrugged.

“Energy was too high for the conductor, I guess.” They both fell into a fit of uncontrollable snickering, and when it was over, there was silence.

She cleared her throat and looked at the floor, splattered with wax and chalk and cum.

“Let’s clean this up. Can’t keep Ms Marin waiting forever.”

“Yes,” he answered immediately, “let’s.”

But as Niko was getting up, Diane suddenly gripped his forearm.

“Hey, wait a moment.”

“Hm?”

She was looking to the table. Her eyes shone bright.

“Do you have a notebook with you?”

*

It was more than a half hour later that Ms Marin, sitting stiffly behind her desk, finally heard the study room’s door open, and saw the two students emerge.

She snatched a folder from her desk. It took her ten decisive echoing strides to reach them.

“Did it work?” she asked, a picture of sternness.

They both looked sideways and adjusted their hair and mumbled that yes, all was fine now.

“Good,” she said, and tore the old book away from Diane’s hands. “I have never been more disappointed in my life. I’ve always trusted that the people admitted into this university represented some, some… integrity, and that they wanted to use their time here to better themselves!”

Diane assumed a bland, collected expression, while Niko’s futile adjusting of hair intensified.

“We…” His reply was cut short by Ms Marin opening her folder and shoving a pamphlet into his hands. Its title was: *A clean mind – a strong mage*.

“I only decided to help you because I hope that you will learn from this. The path that you were on can only lead to suffering!”

Diane opened her mouth, but was likewise cut off by a pamphlet. This one was titled, *Virtuous Living in the Modern Age*.

“I mean,” Niko tried, and was shut up by *Keep on the Sunny Side of Life!*

By the time the folder was empty they were each holding about ten pieces of highly instructive literature. At this point Ms Marin bid them a frigid good-night, re-applied the ward to the book, and stormed off to return it to safety.

There were very few students remaining in the reading room, and none had been paying any attention to the muffled exchange. It was closing time soon. Niko and Diane looked at each other, stifled laughter, and rushed for the exit, in case Ms Marin changed her mind and returned to them with more wisdom.

*(continued below)*

Source: reddit.com/r/eroticliterature/comments/u0ln62/arcane_tangle_ch_2_mf_fantasy_magic_university