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Imodel had insisted on returning to Hidden Dragon, and unfortunately, Calain could not go with her because she was human, though she secretly wanted to. The idea of fighting for a cause again appealed to her. She wanted to pledge herself in Imodel’s service and follow her throughout the world.
But Calain knew better than to ask. Imodel seemed far older than she appeared and very much an independent woman, the sort of woman who needed no Knight of Falcon to defend her. Back when they were escaping the Gold Keep, she had helped Calain fight and had lain out a few Rose Guard knights on her own. She was proficient in acrobatics, flipping through the air and kicking her enemies in the face, and she was deadly with a bow.
Calain was beginning to suspect that Imodel was in fact a trained assassin. The elves of Menosea had an underground order known as Venom Six (for there were only ever six assassins per cell), and during her years of training at Falcon Isle, Calain had come across a group of them while traveling with Knight Octava. Three of the assassins had been seated at the bar in a tavern – not even concealed in the corner! – wearing black clothing of a light, breezy material and shoes that were more akin to socks. Knight Octava had nodded grimly at them and whispered to Calain, “Venom Six.”
Imodel was likely an assassin who had posed as a maid in the Gold Keep. Her joke about wishing she had slain the queen and her bloodthirsty eagerness to know what Calain had felt while doing it, on top of everything else, seemed to point to the obvious truth.
But Imodel refused to confirm Cailan’s suspicions one way or the other. One morning, she simply kissed Calain on the nose, thanked her, and told her farewell.
“I do believe thou hast used me,” said Calain, frowning down at Imodel.
Imodel stuck an indignant hand on her hip. “To escape certain death in the Gold Keep? Yes, I did. As if you didn’t use me to forget about your lady. Except you cannot forget her, try as you might.” She placed a sympathetic hand on Calain’s heart and said, “Poor thing. Your heart is broken, but it will mend.”
“No part of me is broken!” Calain protested.
Imodel laughed at the lie.
“Leave! I care not!” Calain said irritably and stepped back, so that Imodel could not reach her.
Imodel was still smiling. “Yes, you care so little that you scream at me and turn red.”
Calain tensed and wanted to yell again, but she knew it would just confirm Imodel’s words, so she stood there in silence, feeling foolish and helpless. She was beginning to wonder just how old Imodel was, for the woman had a way of making her feel like a silly child. It reminded her a little of Selene.
Imodel drew near and took Calain’s hands. “Speak true, Calain. What do you feel?”
“I wish I could go with you,” Calain confessed. “I feel you are abandoning me. As fair Zelda did . . . As my mother did.”
Imodel frowned sadly and touched Calain’s cheek. “What if I sat on your face one last time? Would that ease your sorrow?”
Calain sighed with longing and said, “Yes.”
And so, Imodel sat one last time upon Calain’s face, and this time, she did not bounce away and tease. She bent forward so that Calain could reach her easily and allowed the knight to plunge her face between her thighs as deeply as she pleased, bringing her to a moist, breathless climax.
When Imodel had gone, Calain sat alone on the green slope beside the stream, her arms resting on her knees, her sword on her back, and watched the sunset as she meditated on Imodel’s words.
Imodel had forced Calain to recognize who she was. She was a knight, whose very existence centered around service. If she was not living her life in service, she was not happy nor living true to her purpose.
Imodel had also made her realize there was no shame in loving Zelda. If only Zelda felt the same.
It was then, as the sun set over the mountains, that Calain made her choice. She would set forth to find a maiden to serve, a maiden who was true and who would love only she. But before leaving Eriallon, she would do what she had longed to do since she was thirteen: she would visit her father.
When she was small, Calain and her father had lived on a small farm on the outskirts of Alleren. The entire area was farmland as far as the eye could see, a community of common folk, whose crops and dairy filled the markets of Alleren. Calain’s father had run a small chicken farm with only the help of Calain and a young girl named Siobhan, who hadn’t been quite four years old when Calain left at five.
Calain remembered thinking Siobhan was her sister, until her father explained that he had taken her in when her parents (their neighbors) died during the winter of the plague. Siobhan had been with them since she and Calain were both in swaddling, and she had nursed at the breasts of Calain’s own mother.
Calain wondered what had happened to Siobhan. When Calain was sent to train at Falcon Isle, the farm had been failing. Her father was frightened they would not survive the winter, so he sent Calain away. Had he sent Siobhan away as well?
Calain walked beside the road leading from Alleren, careful to keep off the road itself and close to the thin cluster of trees that grew alongside it, so that she might duck inside its shadow when travelers passed by. Fortunately, there were not many travelers on the road. A man driving a horse and cart to the city had stared suspiciously at her silhouette in the trees, but seeing how big and strong her figure was, thought better of approaching her and kept driving.
Eventually, Calain came to the dirt road that led to her father’s farm. But she had barely walked up it when she was spied from the windows of her father’s little house. As she drew near, she saw her elderly father come hobbling out on his cane, the sunlight falling upon his now-gray hair, and with him came a beautiful red-haired woman Calain didn’t recognize.
The red-haired woman was fresh-faced and young, with small feet and hands and a tiny waist. Her great freckled breasts were practically bursting from the low collar of her peasant’s dress, and her long, bright red hair fell in wild curls around a young, pretty face that was also freckled. She grinned when she saw Calain, her blue eyes crinkled up, and she screamed, “Calain?! Gods be good! I don’t believe it!”
Calain’s father laughed merrily as the red-haired woman came running down the steps—breasts bouncing, arms open, hair streaming – and smashed into Calain.
Calain choked as she was hugged tightly around the neck. The young woman kissed her face again and again while squealing, “Calain! Calain! Tis I!”
Calain awkwardly hugged the woman back, trying to ignore how wonderfully her giant breasts were crushing against her. “Uh . . . Hello . . .”
Sensing how stiff and awkward Calain was, the woman pulled back and said with an incredulous giggle, “Calain, don’t you recognize me! Tis I! Siobhan!”
Calain stared in utter shock. But before she could reply, her father came hobbling up, laughing and grinning all the while. He had shriveled into a tiny man the size of a child. He dropped his cane and held open his arms, and grinning, Calain stooped down and hugged her little father.
Arthur laughed and hugged Calain back, patting her wild red hair as he said, “Calain! My big, strong girl! Ease up now, you’ll break me right in half!”
Calain chuckled and couldn’t resist: she lifted her little father clear off his feet in a hug. They laughed loudly together as Siobhan stood by, watching them fondly.
***
CALAIN WASN’T SURPRISED her father’s farm hadn’t been raided by bandits. No one was foolish enough to harm the father of a Falcon Knight, and the symbol of the falcon had been carved on her father’s house as a warning. Because of that symbol, Arthur and Siobhan had lived here safe for eighteen years.
Calain’s father invited her inside, and he bid Siobhan to bring some of his old clothes for Calain to wear, so that his daughter could stop traveling about in her smallclothes. Siobhan gladly obeyed, bringing Calain a tunic and trousers, which Calain gladly put on. Then she and her father sat together beside the fire, while Siobhan went out to the barn to tend the one horse and cow on the property.
“My girl,” said Arthur proudly as he watched Calain eagerly devour the stew Siobhan had brought her. “My girl is a Knight of Falcon. And so big and strong! No one could best you! Not even the Rose Guard!”
Calain looked up in surprise. “Art thou not ashamed of me? I slew the queen. I am a traitor to the realm.”
“You acted in your lady’s defense,” said Arthur seriously. “You betrayed no one.”
Calain stared darkly into the fire. “It wasn’t worth giving up my life for her. The lady wasn’t true.”
Arthur frowned. “I hope you slew the one you caught her with,” he scolded, as if he suspected she had not.
“I did not catch her in the act of betrayal,” Calain admitted.
Arthur’s frown deepened. “Then how dost thou know she hath betrayed you?”
“I felt it in my heart,” Calain said, feeling foolish under her father’s disbelieving gaze.
“So let me get this straight,” said Arthur slowly. “You abandoned your lady because you suspect she hath betrayed you?” He scoffed. “Do the young people not believe in talking any longer? Have your brains rotted from wine?”
Calain stared at her stew. She didn’t have to explain about the Binding. Her father knew about it. She had written to him about her training in many letters, and because her father could not read or write, Siobhan had read them to him. He had shown Calain the letters as soon as she’d entered the house, and tears had filled her eyes because she had spent years believing the old man dead. Her father had never answered because Siobhan could read but could not write.
“So a little magick spell made you suspect something,” went on her father, speaking of the Binding, “and just like that, you betrayed your vows?”
Calain didn’t want to admit it, but her father had a point. It didn’t even occur to her to speak with Zelda first. She had simply jumped to conclusions and left Zelda’s service. But perhaps Zelda hadn’t lain with Melvalda without reason. Calain blinked as she considered it.
Seeing that he had reached Calain, Arthur wearily shook his head and muttered, “I suppose it could have been worse: the gods could have given me sons.”
Calain smiled.
“Now finish your stew,” went on her father, “and then you say your farewells to Siobhan, and you march back out there and find your lady.”
“Yes, Pa,” said Calain and tipped back her bowl to drink the rest of the stew off. She set the bowl aside on the nearby table and stood, leaning down to kiss her now -grumpy father’s head.
“Hmph!” said Arthur, trying to appear stern and disapproving, though his lips twitched in a pleased smile nonetheless.
Out in the barn, Siobhan had just left the cow’s stall and was fastening the door shut when Calain playfully snuck up and hugged her tightly from behind. Siobhan squealed in shock, then laughed when she recognized Calain’s bulging arms about her and gave Calain’s arm a playfully scolding slap.
“Siobhan,” Calain said happily, her face beside Siobhan's face as she hunched down, hugging her from behind. She brushed aside Siobhan’s red hair to look at her cleavage, and Siobhan took a shaking, nervous breath that made her breasts heave nicely.
“Thou hast grown quite large,” Calain joked, squeezing Siobhan’s big breasts in fistfuls. She felt her sex stir to arousal.
Siobhan giggled, her breasts trembling in Calain’s grasp. But she went still again and took another nervous breath when Calain’s hands gently massaged her breasts through her dress.
“You’ve grown big as well. I hardly recognized you! You’re so s-strong,” Siobhan whispered breathlessly, “but so g-gentle . . .” She sounded frightened.
Calain paused her massaging. “Shall I stop, my lady?”
“N-No,” whispered Siobhan, who was shaking slightly. “Don’t s-stop. . . I am only afeared your father shall find us.”
Calain peeled the low collar of Siobhan’s dress down over her breasts, exposing how plump and high they were. The little pink nipples were jutting with her arousal. Calain cupped her breasts and massaged again, loving how warm and soft they were, thumbing the nipples gently. Siobhan sighed and her head fell back against Calain, the movement thrusting her high breasts forward in Cailan’s hands.
Calain set her boot on the nearby milking stool, and reaching down, she drew Siobhan’s leg up, so that it draped across her own.
Siobhan blushed when Calain’s hand drew up her skirts and slid without hesitation down the front of her panties. “W-What if your f-father . . .”
“He won’t come,” said Calain absently and buried a kiss in Siobhan’s neck as she continued massaging her breast and fingering her. She caressed Siobhan’s clitoris, which was fat with arousal, and heard Siobhan moan, saw her blue eyes stare, unseeing, in baffled shock, saw her lips part in a gasp. Perhaps she had never been touched before. Had she spent her entire life hidden away on the farm?
Siobhan shivered. “Oh, Calain. . . By the gods . . .”
Calain slid her fingers carefully in Siobhan’s sex and felt her tight maidenhead, a ring of resistance. So no man had broken her. She felt relieved by the knowledge. She thumbed Siobhan’s nipple gently and felt Siobhan’s sex grow moist, felt Siobhan’s maidenhead relax and admit her. Slowly, her fingers sank through the hot moisture of Siobhan’s sex, sliding deeper and deeper the wetter she grew. Siobhan’s head was still back on Calain’s shoulder, and she was moaning.
“Thy are so moist,” Calain whispered in Siobhan’s ear. “Would that there was time to taste you.”
Calain worked Siobhan slowly to a climax, and it was like the gradual blossoming of a flower. After much trembling and moaning, Siobhan eventually released, her little sex clenching over Calain’s caressing fingers.
But once they had made love, Siobhan tucked her breasts away and seemed overcome with great shame. She did not meet Calain’s eye, instead going to the horse with her head down as she said, “Arthur said you could t-take the horse. . . We shall find an-nother . . .” She suddenly broke down crying, her shoulders shaking.
“What’s the matter?” said Calain in concern and drew near behind her. She hesitated and hugged Siobhan from behind, kissed her cheek.
“Oh!” cried Siobhan miserably. “Why did you have to be so sweet? Why did you have to turn up here when I had f-finally accepted my fate, reminding me of all the things I cannot have?”
Calain was baffled. “What do you mean, Siobhan?”
“I am to marry thy father!” Siobhan blurted through her tears.
Calain tensed, then grabbed Siobhan by the shoulders and spun her around. Siobhan bowed her head, weeping helplessly in Calain’s grasp.
“Marry my father?” said Calain in disgust. “He is more than twice thy age!”
Siobhan looked up at Calain miserably. “He needs children to run the f-farm or we shall lose it. I have nowhere else to g-go, and I am f-fertile and . . .”
“No!” said Calain, who refused to believe it.
Siobhan sniffled unhappily, but she smiled through her tears, gazing fondly up at Calain as she said, “You’re like some dream, so strong and powerful. I told myself you would take me away from here, but I know you already have a lady.” She shook her head. “She is so lucky.”
Calain thought guiltily of Zelda. She looked down at Siobhan again. “But I don’t understand. Why must thou marry my father. . .?” But the words died on Calain’s lips even as she was saying them. She knew very well that women had few choices in the world. The average woman’s options were marriage or a whorehouse. Even if Siobhan’s parents had lived, it would have been the same.
“We can’t all be a Knight of Falcon,” said Siobhan, smiling through her tears. She kissed Calain on the lips and ran sobbing from the barn.