Ekleipsis (Fantasy Romance - LGBT, manXman)

3.9.

Ithildin was a stranger to self-reflection. His actions often went unexamined. He knew for certain that the sojourn with the Essanti had profoundly altered his chaste elfin nature. The Ancient Race despised the flesh, and neither talked nor thought about it. For the elves, even the meals were only a ritual, because elves could live for a long time without food and not feel deprived. The elf babies were not breastfed or cuddled, and never learned joy and contentment in their mother's arms.

Ithildin had lived for two hundred fifty human years, and in that time had known no earthly pleasures. But he also knew nothing of real deprivation. Hunger, pain, fear, exhaustion were just words to him before the capture. The Essanti had utterly debased him because with them, he was no longer an individual. He had become nothing but a receptacle for gross animal lust: an anus, lips, tongue, fingers, hands ... the hair that could be yanked, and the buttocks fondled to get hard faster, a pair of legs that could be spread to pound harder. That's all he had been to the Essanti.

He had passed through terror, revulsion and despair, and washed up at apathy. It no longer mattered who did what to his body, and even pain became a habit. But the green-eyed red-haired mortal had burst through the indifference that wrapped the elf against reality, and had turned his world upside down.

Ithildin was in turmoil: it seemed to matter to Alva that the elf had both a body and a soul, and Alva wanted him soul and body. Lielle had gifted him a whole universe of delights: love, tenderness, the sweet lull that comes after lovemaking, the warmth of a lover's body under a fur blanket on a cold night, the smell of his skin, the taste of his lips, a sip of wine from his mouth shared within a kiss, a slice of apple out of his hands, a smoldering whisper in his ear.

Ithildin felt alive like never before – a beating heart, blood pulsing through veins, the feel of skin on skin – and, like never before, he was aware of the frailty of life, of its vulnerability and transience. The implacable time killed a mortal within years, a fever – within weeks, and cold steel – in mere seconds. Life would gush out from the beloved body with one flick of a blade severing an artery. Ithildin was beset by this vision, as he clutched numbly at the cord from Alva's uniform and listened to the Chancellor's insidious words.

He had agreed to the deal without hesitation. His life seemed a pittance compared to saving his beloved, and what Rennarte and Fairiz wanted appeared downright trifling. There was no comparing them to the Essanti, who humped him day and night, wildly and brutally, knowing no lubricant other than blood and spit. After what had happened to him, Ithildin could lie easily with anyone; giving over his body was small change to him now, certainly worth saving a life and having a chance to feel, love and be with his lover.

So the Essanti chief had been right when he had called Ithildin a slut and anyone's bitch, and that only made the elf hate him more. The disapproval of his kin had been nothing to the elf. They could go on thinking he had fallen, but he did not care because now he had found a love that lent meaning to his life. But Kintaro's words had to reflect the way Ithildin's lover saw him, because Alva had shared more with the nomad – in their experience of life – than with the elf. "He does not mind who he fucks. He is nothing but a slut, and you are his number two thousand." That was the truth – the way the barbarian saw it, the way Alva could see it some day.

Ithildin was horrified at the very idea that Alva could, even for a second, believe Ithildin did not care who he bedded. Of course there was a difference. The difference between day and night, black and white, ice and fire. It was only with Lielle that copulation became lovemaking: a surge of joy, happiness, sensual ecstasy and a multitude of other sensations he had never known before and could never know with anyone else.