May, 2nd, 2012 A.C, Late afternoon.
Contrary to Theon's expectations, transferring the ownership rights over Mayra took just a few minutes between signing the contract and waiting for her slave crest to be attuned to her new master's aura. What actually became troublesome was the part of making her his slave wife; not only because in this case it included additional paperwork regarding Theon officially becoming Ivy's stepfather, but also because even if Mayra was to become a slave wife, their marriage had to be certified by The Church, and they had coincidentally got their highest representative in jail until the diplomatic issues between Conglomerate and Theocracy could get solved.
They decided to wait in the temple of The Church until things calmed down in the town enough so they could ask if they still had someone with authority to seal a marriage registry form. If there was not, then Theon would be forced to travel with Aincrad for another three days, because the presence of the husband, the wife and the slave trader were needed to make any kind of slave into a slave wife or slave husband,
Mayra and Theon conversed, sitting in a bench together while they waited for a solution to their actual problem. Ivy was sleeping soundly with her head on her mother's lap, exhausted after the horrible experience she had just gone through. Theon sincerely hoped that such a thing would not leave an emotional scar on the little girl... his little girl now, if they actually got someone able to sign the paperwork.
Aincrad was there, pacing back and forth along the main wing of the temple, and Willa was near the altar, tending to Sev's wounds and bruises; apparently her birth skill was white magic, something ironic taking into account that her Sacred Treasure gave her the capacity of dealing a kind of harm that couldn't be totally fixed with her ability to heal.
Even if he had not voiced out his desire to take her when they had to run towards the main square, he still felt some guilt for happily taking Mayra and leaving her behind, specially knowing what kind of destiny awaited her. Willa raised her head, as if she noticed his thoughts, and when their eyes met, she smiled sadly at him, seeing how Theon and Mayra were sitting together. Theon could only lower his head, with his thoughts and feelings in turmoil.
By Theon's request, his soon to be wife told him of her past: her father, Oskar, had a martial arts school in Empire lands in the central continent, and he increased its notoriety and influence by choosing his wives among the second and third daughters of renowned schools so he could implement their techniques into the fighting style he was developing.
One of these women was Berta, Mayra's mother, a woman famous for the way she handled the long saber with a serrated edge she had received as her Sacred Treasure. The rest of his wives were against him taking a Lost Woman as one of his wives, but Oskar was stubborn and obsessed with his legacy; he claimed that the curse of the Lost Women was bullshit and he only cared about learning Berta's fighting style and using it to improve his own fighting techniques to attract even more pupils.
This didn't mean he was a heartless bastard who just used women for his benefit, though. He genuinely loved his wives and children, and he made sure to spend a little time every day with them, and eventually he brought his children into his lessons to kill two birds with one stone and spend hours with his children and keep cultivating his martial arts at the same time.
At this point, Theon thought that the man was just so obsessed that he even used his children, indoctrinating them since they were little so they followed his path, developing and spreading the knowledge of his school even after his death, but he didn't tell Mayra his thoughts because he didn't want a quarrel with her so early in their relationship.
She went on with her story: “Everything seemed perfect, until one day, when there was an exhibition match between masters of different schools, the guy in charge of the Schrodinger Field came drunk to work...”
“Sorry, Schrodinger Field?” Interrupted Theon.
“Oh, you don't have those outside of the Empire? It's something the Demon King of Beasts invented based on the knowledge of a sage from his original world. Inside the Schrodinger Field, things happen and at the same time don't happen, what makes it perfect for combat training, because you can get wounded, crippled, mutilated or even die, and as long as a piece of you is taken out of the field, every damage you have received will just vanish. This way, anyone, specially soldiers, can train how to keep fighting even when injured without having to sustain any real, lasting damage. It is also quite used in duels, because people can fight to the death without actually dying”. Mayra explained.
“Oh, those exist in The Conglomerate too, but we call them Paradox Bubbles. Sorry for interrupting you, what happened next?”
She explained that the man in charge of security during the exhibition came to work while drunk, he wasn't able to keep the field up, and that resulted in her father's death. Everything broke down from there: Her father had been able to buy a permit to have as many wives as a knight, but when he died, the other four wives left his home, taking their respective children with them. Not long after that, Berta received letters from them saying that it had been decided that she would keep the school, but she had to pay them their respective cut of its value.
Their goal was using the debt to crush Berta into slavery as a punishment for getting their husband killed with her curse, but she was as stubborn as her deceased husband, if not more, and she spent years managing the school. Two years after losing her father, Mayra received her own Sacred Treasure, and almost all of the male students left the school; it seems they had stayed until that point in hopes of making Mayra their wife to become the school master and earn easy profit thanks to the reputation of the founder. However, that plan came to nothing when they found out that Mayra had become a Lost Woman just like her mother. They decided that Oskar's school was finished.
It was around the time when Mayra was twenty years old that her mother died due to overwork. She not only had been giving it her best running the school, but also, those times she said she was going on a trip to try and scout new pupils, in reality she had been taking mercenary jobs eliminating aura beasts and working as a private guard in rich people parties or during transport missions. In the end, all of that took its toll and Mayra inherited the school together with the remainder of the debt imposed by his father's widows. Mayra was very tempted to give up, but she had a great support in one of her pupils, Nikolav.
The boy was four years younger than her, but he had already been five years training under Mayra and her mother, and he had reached the rank of head pupil, which meant he was above all the other students in talent, skill and knowledge, but he wasn't still at the level of an assistant instructor, even if he usually played that role. It was his always optimistic personality that helped Mayra a lot going through the loss of her mother. It took him another three years to reach the grade of master, and when he could finally see Mayra eye to eye, he confessed his feelings for her and proposed marriage, to which she happily agreed.
Having become the new master of the school, Nikolav suddenly took drastic measures: he took a loan to pay the family debt, and deciding that the school needed a fresh start, they moved it from The Empire to the lands of The Conglomerate, where they knew about Oskar's fame but didn't have any real information about the reasons behind its decline. Mayra was blind with love and didn't see anything suspicious at that point.
Moving from a country to another can be quite easy under normal circumstances, but moving between the lands of two of the world's major factions can be quite the odyssey. It took them a whole year only to get the permits, but things ended well given the circumstances and eventually they were able to reopen Oskar's Academy of Martial Arts in Nikolav's hometown, and not long after moving in, Mayra came out with the revelation that she was pregnant.
The same way it had happened before, disaster struck Mayra at the peak of her happiness: her husband was outside one evening, training with his sword and developing a new technique under a tree, trying to cut the fallen leaves before they touched the ground to improve his speed. It was the perfect timing for him because, with a storm approaching, the wind made leaves fall faster and in more quantity, but the storm grew stronger and a lightning stroke close to where Nikolav was standing. He crouched and covered his head on instinct, and it was because of that and the roaring storm that he failed to notice that the lightning had hit the tree he was under, until half of the burning trunk fell on him. He died because of the burns, several broken bones and crushed organs before help could arrive. .
As if to pour salt on the freshly open wound, Mayra learned that she had been played all the time: Nikolav's real name was Roger Nicholson, heir to a family of knights. His family had decided that moving Oskar's school into their territory would raise their status and as such, they would be able to raise in the ranks of nobility, but now, with their son dead, they blamed Mayra for everything because she was a Lost Woman, and they demanded all the rights on the school, the money they had given their son to pay for Mayra's family debts, and the child still in her belly.
Mayra consented to the first, blaming her father's dream for every disaster in her life, but she didn't have the money to pay a debt of several gold coins, and she was by no means going to let herself be caged for the rest of her pregnancy just to be kicked out in the dirt right after giving birth; no matter how much she hated her late husband at that point, she still loved the baby growing inside her.
So she fled into the night, hiding and traveling between small towns to reduce the chance of being recognized, until one fateful night when she met Aincrad during one of his work trips, and she entered his service as a private guard, working at his home during Ivy's first three years, and later at the store he had near his house.
The Nicholson family found Mayra through hearsay; a woman with her features, carrying a long saber as her Sacred Treasure would always stand out after all. Luckily, the new laws about the power of nobility were already in place, so they took Mayra to the court, given that they no longer could just steal Ivy from her and then kill her.
To their frustration, the judge agreed that Mayra was to repay the debt, but she had no obligation to give up her daughter. Finally, the head of the Nicholson family imposed an unrealistic deadline for the payment of the debt, giving Mayra the chance of canceling it in exchange for Ivy's custody, but they didn't foresee that she would sell herself as a slave to her boss in order to raise the money in time.
Mayra sighed and steeled herself to come out and say what she wanted to say: “I am very thankful for how you came out to our rescue, knowing how bad things could have gotten for yourself if all the guards were as corrupted as their lord, if it wasn't for you, by now I would have died horribly and my little angel would be that depraved monster's sex slave. That said, I have to admit that I don't like how you handled things; guiding the situation so I was made a life-time slave, just so you could have us through a promise Lemuel made with you”.
She leaned in closer to whisper in Theon's ear, making the hairs on the back of his neck to stand on end, “Just a friendly warning: if you saved my daughter from that pedophile so you could abuse her yourself, you better know that I'm quite confident in my speed. If I am at the right distance, I can slice your head off before the curses in my body stop me from moving”.
Theon slid an arm around Mayra, leaning her even closer to himself. “You don't have to worry about that, Ivy is adorable, but I don't see her in that light. Now that I know the story of both of you I feel a sense of camaraderie, perhaps a certain degree of parental endearment towards Ivy, but the one I really wanted to have is you”.
Mayra tensed in Theon's embrace. “Me? Are you crazy? I'm a Lost Woman, I have already caused one man's death!”
“Have you ever heard the saying “What happens once may never happen again, but what happens twice will surely happen a third”? Well, your mother found a man who didn't care about the curse, you found a man who didn't care either... and here I am, the third one in the list”.
The older woman shook her head, baffled, but then frowned as something her new owner had just said suddenly hit her. “What did you mean just now when you talked about a feeling of camaraderie?”
Mayra noticed the sudden tension in his muscles, to the point that she almost regretted asking. When he spoke, his voice sounded under control, but the feelings in it where undeniable; “When I was around four years old, my parents and I moved into a land north from here, but when we did, we still didn't know that the feudal lord was a degenerate with a home-made law that he enforced through all of his domain: Every woman above seventeen years of age, registered as a citizen of my domain, has the obligation of serving me as a concubine at least one night, no matter if they are pure or married. My mother was arrested and taken to the lord's palace, and the next morning, the feudal lord came to our house fuming with rage, breaking our belongings and screaming things that caused me nightmares; apparently, my mother wasn't able to withstand being defiled by that bastard and committed suicide before letting him rape her”.
“That's horrible!” Interrupted Mayra.
“And if that wasn't bad enough, the feudal lord came up with a punishment on the spot: given that my mother wasn't able to “fulfill her duty towards the lord”, Theon's voice dripped with sarcasm and disgust saying that, “My family was in the obligation of paying one big gold coin as compensation”.
Mayra interrupted again, “One big gold?! Was that man crazy? With that much money you can buy at least four slaves, or maybe two slaves worthy of the royal court!”
“My father's other wives left the town in the middle of the night, but he couldn't so that, so he spent the next ten years working tirelessly, and during that time I unlocked the laws skill and studied tirelessly to improve it, thinking there had to be something, somewhere that allowed me to take down that walking calamity of a feudal lord. The time I didn't spend studying, I was improving the broad sword skill I learned from my father, or working to earn a little more money, even though my father didn't want me to do that. I also visited my mother's grave daily to pray for her”.
Willa finished treating Sev, and she walked down the carpeted floor of the temple to sit down in a bench, several rows behind the couple.
Theon continued with his story: “Well, ten years or so after my mother's death, my father died while killing an aura beast. I wasn't told any details, I was just unceremoniously given a box that contained his sword and his bloody chest armor, which looked as if had been chewed on. It hadn't been an hour from receiving such a shock, when the feudal lord entered my house as if nothing and started looking around while deliberately ignoring me. After a few minutes he finally looked at me, and the only thing that came out of his mouth was that he was going to take both the house, and me as a life-time slave to cover the debt still pending for my mother's crime”.
“I guess it must not have been easy to contain yourself in such a situation”. Mayra pointed.
“Well, more or less the same as when your in-laws asked for your school, your money and your daughter. In any case, another reason why I said we are similar is because I let him have the house, but I took the time I was given to prepare myself to grab everything I could from my parents' belongings and flee. I ran towards the capital, where I started working as a servant in the dormitories of an academy to pay for my high school education. I was safe there simply because the feudal lord would expose himself if he said the reasons why he wanted me captured and delivered to him, especially with the new laws; he would lose everything for committing abuse of power. I still pray for my parents every day, but I haven't been able to visit their graves in all these years”.
Mayra started to feel that sentiment of mutual understanding her man had told about earlier, and she changed her posture, trying to comfort him. Wait, did she just think about the boy as “her man”? At first she felt really confused, but she decided to analyze: he could understand better than anyone the pain she had gone through, like losing your whole family or being chased away from your home because of the greed and arrogance of nobility, he had taken great risks to save them, he sincerely wanted to care for Ivy as his own daughter, and the very important fact that he legally owned her, it felt kind of natural thinking about him in such a close manner.
At that moment, Ivy stirred with a soft groan, then raised her head, looked around and mumbled “Whaa? We still 'ere?” Then she let out a long yawn at the same time that she stretched in an almost exaggerate way.
Mayra waited for her daughter be a little bit more composed and awaken before getting her attention and talking to her seriously: “Sweetheart, I know this is a sudden change but, do you remember your friend Theon here? He's going to be your new daddy from now on”.
Instead of answering, the little girl slipped down from her seat and waddled, still a bit drowsy, until she stood in front of Theon, where she looked at him in the face. After several seconds, when Theon was about to try and say something to break the awkward moment, Ivy grabbed his trousers and climbed him until she sat in his lap. Without saying a word, she hugged him, placing her head on his chest and grabbing tiny fistfuls of his shirt.
He looked at Mayra with a raised eyebrow. “Well, that's a favorable answer, I guess?”
Theon started caressing her hair when he noticed that Ivy had fallen asleep again, and when Mayra saw the smile on his face and the way he looked at Ivy, she had the feeling that this was going to be a good thing for all of them.
Less than an hour later, four men entered the temple: one of them dressed in religious clothes and the other three dressed as city guards. When he saw Theon, the man in religious clothes walked hurriedly towards him, without noticing he had a guard behind him with a hand on the hilt of his sword.
When he was in front of Theon, he bowed almost ninety degrees. “You must be young Mister Forrester! I am the Acolyte Penn, please, allow me to express my gratitude for ridding The Church from such a shame of a priest, it was so infuriating to see him use the name of The Goddess for his material and political gain! But we couldn't do anything to prevent it, not even talk about it with others, because of him being a higher rank than us in The Church and The Theocracy, our lives and our families' lives were literally in his hands! We have all been waiting for someone righteous like you to face him and put him where he deserves! Oh, Goddess, but you're not here for that, are you? I heard you were going to take this fine lady as your slave wife! Please, be so kind to wait just a few more minutes while I go inside to put on a robe so I can sanctify the altar for the ceremony!”
The excited man left through a door behind the altar, and when he was sure he wouldn't be heard by him, Theon said in a low voice, “Is it just me being cynical, or did his words really sound like, “Thanks for giving me the chance of raising to take my superior's position, I'll make sure to abuse my power in a lot less obvious way”?
Mayra answered with the same tone. “Maybe both of us are being cynical, because I had just the same thought”.
Everyone laughed, and Theon passed the half asleep Ivy to her mother so he could speak with the guards. His heart skipped a bit when the girl stretched a hand towards him and mumbled, “Daddy...”
He hurriedly grabbed the hand, giving it a soft kiss and whispering to the girl, “I'm right here baby, I just need to speak about adult stuff with these men”.
Still half asleep, the girl frowned and mumbled, irritated, “Not a baby...”
The guard who had spoken with Theon earlier at the main square approached him. “Sorry for the late introduction, my name is Daniel Bard, and I'm the provisional city guard captain. I came with my men mostly to keep an eye on that guy from The Church so he doesn't do anything fishy, but we also wanted to express our gratitude for what you have done for this town, as well as giving you a deserved reward”.
One of the guards took a step forward and left a bag in Theon's hands. The contents emitted a metallic jingle, and he knew exactly what it was, but he couldn't help but ask, “What is this?”
Bard answered, smiling, “Well, we have done a preliminary search of the previous guard captain's belongings, and found stored money from bribery. Given that you discovered two, maybe three evildoers with a list of serious crimes, the city guard as a whole decided that you deserved this bag containing the equivalent of two and a half small gold coins”. He looked at Mayra and Ivy. “It seems that you're really going to need it, now that you're starting a family”.
Theon just stood there, gawking at the biggest amount of money he had ever had in his hands, and after a long moment, he looked at the people around him. He made a gesture of his head towards Mayra, and they walked away from the rest of the group. Once they had a little privacy, he told her about Willa and her situation.
Mayra immediately answered with a question, “Are you asking for my permission to buy her as a slave wife? I guess that you would want to save her, given what happened to your family, but you didn't need to have such a consideration with me. I thank you for it, though, my opinion of you has improved a little”.
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“Only a little?” Asked Theon.
She stuck out her tongue playfully. “I still haven't forgotten how you manipulated to have me”.
They walked back to the group, and Theon offered the bag to Aincrad without preamble. “I want to buy Willa and register her as my slave wife as well”.
The group just stood there for a second, surprised, but then Willa tumbled to the nearest bench, where she sat down and covered her face with her hands and started crying. Aincrad, on the other hand, looked at the bag with calculating eyes.
After almost a minute, Aincrad shook his head. “She was going to be sold at the state-driven mines northeast from here, and those people don't pay much because of the high mortality rates among their workers. I'll only be taking half of a small gold, as the nice guard captain said, you need it to support your new family, even more now that you will be having two wives and a kid”.
The acolyte announced that everything was ready for the ceremony just a few minutes after Aincrad finished arranging Willa's paperwork and received the payment for her. All the while, the girl had been practically glued to Theon, cuddling into the young man's side with her head on his shoulder. Once everyone moved to the altar, Theon explained to the acolyte that there had been a small change in plans, and at first the religious man understood that Theon would be marrying Willa instead of Mayra. Penn's smile twitched slightly when Theon finally made him understand that he would be marrying both the “normal” woman and the Lost Woman in the same ceremony.
Acolyte Penn tried to make it something memorable, giving a long speech about the Words of the Mother Goddess regarding marriage as the duty of men and women for the sake of the continuity of the world, but to his frustration, everyone voted for making it simple because they were all tired , so the acolyte moved directly to the vows and putting the seal of The Church in the registry documents to finally make the marriage legal.
Once outside, two of the guards left to go on with their patrol, while Theon and his new wives said their goodbyes to Aincrad and Sev. The merchant and his servant would go on with their travel, leaving before dawn, while Theon and his new family would stay in town and wait for the shuttle that would depart at noon, so it was probable that they would never meet again after that.
As the boy started walking away, with the little girl in his arms, the quirky blonde close to his left, and the Lost woman a little away to his right, Sev sighed and told his master, “That could have gone a lot worse, but certainly it could have been better as well. The price for the blonde was fair, but Mayra could have earned you a pretty penny”.
Aincrad shook his head. “It was inevitable, but in any case, I still call it a win-win situation for both sides”.
Lemuel Aincrad still made business traveling personally in the truck for a reason, instead of leaving that job to one of his children or a trusty pupil; he could meet people, and his Treasure allowed him to read those people. Aincrad not only traded with slaves, but also with information, selling the names of promising people to those who could be interested in hiring or buying them.
“Theon Forrester”. Said Aincrad to himself. Whispering that name in the right ears, and telling them what he was capable of, would earn him much more profit than just selling a couple of slaves.
Thrilled but tired at the same time, Theon walked around town with his wives and his daughter, looking for a clothing shop. “As sexy as your actual... attire can be, you girls need real clothing for the sake of decency and personal dignity”. Said Theon.
“What is “sexy?” Asked Ivy suddenly. As Theon and Mayra were taken by surprise at the question, Willa answered on her own.
“It means pretty, but said in an adult way”. The she looked immediately at Mayra with an apologetic look on her face, thinking that maybe the mother wanted to tell her something else, but she just nodded her head, thankful for the quick thinking and the save.
Ivy looked at Theon with a wide smile pointing at her own face with a finger. “I'm sexy, daddy?”
Theon went stiff, and both women snickered at his obvious discomfort. “I won't answer that question until you are thirteen years older, at least”.
Ivy frowned and puffed her cheeks, irritated, and everyone entered the shop they had just found.
The clerk, a young woman, came to the entrance to receive them, or so they thought, because in reality she planted herself in front of them, blocking the path to the inside of the shop, and told them with a fake smile, “Excuse me, kid, but this is a high class establishment, if you want to cover yourself or your vulgar slaves with something better than those rags, I'm sure the discount shop down the street will suit your budget”.
“I hate it so much when arrogant people insult you with polite words and a smile”. Willa blurted out her feelings.
The clerk opened her mouth to answer, this time forgetting her smile, but a voice sounded from behind her. “Emily!”
Emily turned to the older woman. “Oh, you can go ahead and close the shop, madame, I have already dealt with this rabble”.
The lady frowned. “You are demoted to back shop and storage duty until further notice”.
The clerk looked back at her boss, seemingly offended. “Why? I just...”
“Don't say a single word if you want to keep working under me. You lack the insight to judge customers accurately, you look down on everyone, and you lack manners to speak with people properly, all of that because you are too quick to judge on external appearances. Why can't he afford to do shopping here, because he is young? He has obviously just bought two slaves of high quality, why couldn't he afford to buy here? But worst of all, is that you have just insulted the young gentleman who saved this town from its corrupted administration”.
Emily opened her mouth, but the shop owner pointed to the door behind the counter, and she stormed out. The owner bowed to them and expressed her apologies, but it seemed that the damage had already been dealt, because Mayra turned her back on the older woman, and spoke to Theon while looking at the door.
“If you insist on buying here, I won't complain anymore, but personally, I would prefer not having anything from this place”.
The shop owner rubbed her hands, nervous. “Oh, please, don't be so sullen. The merchant association in this town is going to have it against me if they hear about this, how about I give you a fifty percent discount?”
Theon was about to say if she could afford such a discount, but decided not to say anything. The old woman apparently saw through him, because she added, “Don't worry, the other half will come out directly from Emily's paycheck. This is a lesson she needs to learn very well if she wants to climb up in the world of business”.
“Ha! Now I feel like placing a big order!” Said Willa while Mayra turned around again and started looking at the children section in silence.
His women stopped and stared at Theon, expectant, until he cleared his throat and said, “I want three sets of clothing, two sets of sleepwear, five sets of underwear and two pairs of shoes for each one”, and so, the ordeal began.
Theon barely remembered his mother by now, his father's other wives had left the town in a rush when they knew what had happened with her, and Theon himself never had an official girlfriend, so he didn't know what it meant to go shopping for clothes with a woman... but now he was learning it multiplied by three.
When Mayra finished picking Ivy's clothes and joined Willa, Theon was walking around the shop when he saw Ivy looking at a shelf intently, with a hand half stretched, as if she was doubting about grabbing something or not. Theon approached silently and he found out that she was looking at plushies.
He walked to her side, making sure not to startle her, and knelt by her side. “Do you like them?”
Ivy nodded. “I had to leave all of my toys when mom and I got on that truck”.
Theon laughed softly. “Well, you and your mom don't need to get on that truck anymore, so I think you can get one”.
She opened her eyes wide, smiling and jumping while she asked, “Really?”
“Well, I am your daddy now, right? I think there's nothing wrong with pampering my little girl a bit”.
Ivy looked at the shelf more intently, grabbing her hands. After a few minutes, she looked back at Theon. “Can you choose for me?”
Theon looked at the stuffed animals. Bears were very typical, so he started looking for something special, different. His eyes stopped on a pastel pink teddy bunny, with droopy ears almost as long as its legs, and grabbed it from the shelf to offer it to Ivy.
She looked the stuffed animal in its beady black eyes. “A bunny?”
“Well, I think those fluffy bunnies with floppy ears are really cute, don't you?”
Ivy nodded and, grabbing the bunny by the arms, she put it face to face with Theon, asking him to give it a name. Taken by surprise, he said the first thing that came to his mind, with a doubtful voice and a raised eyebrow, “Jumpy?”
The little girl started jumping with glee, laughing while saying, “Jumpy, Jumpy!” Then she jumped at Theon's neck, still holding her new toy, and started covering his cheeks with kisses. He almost fell backwards due to the surprise but he ended up enjoying the pure affection and happiness of the little girl. “My little girl”. He reminded himself mentally.
They walked together through the shop to join Mayra and Willa, who were still busy choosing their clothes. Ivy ran to her mother and showed her the new toy.
“Look, mommy! Daddy got me a new friend, her name is Jumpy!” She said, jumping excitedly.
Mayra looked at Theon, and then smile to her daughter. “Have you properly thanked him?”
Ivy nodded energetically. “Yes! I gave him lots of smoochies!”
Willa and Mayra laughed, and Theon looked at the women to ask, “Can you watch over her while you finish doing your shopping? It is getting late, so I want to go make sure we have a hotel room and a table for dinner before they close booking time for the day”.
“Make sure to grab two rooms, even if they have rooms with double beds there are still four of us”. Willa winked and directed a knowing gaze at Ivy without her noticing. Theon blushed slightly at the implications of Willa's words, but turned around and left the shop without saying anything else.
It seems that Theon's name and description was known all around town by that point, because numerous people wanted to show their appreciation for what he had done for them: he was given luxury rooms for the price of regular ones, the manager herself ordered to have their dinner ready in a private hall, and some local people who were having a few rounds of drinks insisted on having him join them. Theon agreed to have a mug of beer, but in his own words, he couldn't stay for long because he didn't want to make his ladies wait.
When he returned from the hotel, the shop keeper had prepared quite a big package on a side of the counter, and was busy placing other things into three separate bags.
Theon greeted them and told them all the arrangements they needed for now were done, and Willa came to his side, linking her arm with one of his. “Most of our new things are in that package, those bags are for the things we will be using during the trip to...” She chuckled. “Well, wherever it is we're going tomorrow”.
"Now that the WWAN block imposed by the feudal lord is gone, I was able to connect and do a quick search at the terminal in the hotel. Tomorrow we will get the shuttle that leaves the town, then we will spend the evening resting at a hotel and take the night long-distance shuttle to the capital. Once I have fixed my current situation there, I'm afraid we will keep traveling for a little while longer”.
Willa only said that she wanted to send her parents a message, so they knew that she was fine, that she wasn't going to end up in the mines and that she had gotten herself a wonderful hubby capable of facing corrupted nobles without batting an eyelid. Theon laughed at that, saying that she was overestimating him, and when everything was finally ready at the shop, Theon paid the bill and everyone walked together to the hotel, eager to have shower, a nice dinner and sleep away the thrills of the day.
It was decided that Theon would take his shower in one of the rooms, and the girls in the other. Given that they were going to take more time, they asked him to wait in the dinning hall, and he gave them directions so they could meet there when they were ready. He still didn't grow a full beard given his age, but he decided to shave nevertheless, in part because he had been a week without doing so and in part to make time until all of them joined for dinner.
Theon still had to wait more than an hour in the dining room until the girls finally arrived. The first one to enter was Ivy, dressed in a short-sleeved V-neck almost the same red as her hair, and white leggings. Then the older women entered the room and Theon's jaw dropped; both Mayra and Willa were dressed as maids, their uniforms consisting of a navy blue knee-length skirt and jacket, a white apron and a white shirt with a frilly, generous cleavage.
Willa nudged Mayra. “See? I told you the impact was going to be just perfect!”, and laughed as she did a full turn to show herself off in front of her husband, while Mayra looked aside with a slight blush on her cheeks.
After so many years living in solitude, aside from certain moments he didn't want to remember, having dinner with so many people, a family dinner in fact, caused him a sudden surge of emotion, and his eyes teared up.
The first to notice was Ivy, who jumped from her chair and ran to him. “Does it hurt anywhere? Or is it the veggies? I know they taste bad, but they are good for your body”. Said the little darling while patting his back.
Theon laughed, lifting Ivy to sit her in his lap. The girl let out a “geh!” sound of surprise, what made him laugh. Theon looked the girl in the eyes and said, “I've been alone for a long time now, so having a family to have dinner with and laugh together just made me very happy”.
Willa let out an “Awww!” and came quickly to give him a hug, and even Mayra came closer to give him a reassuring squeeze in the shoulder. From that point on, the rest of the dinner passed by in a much more relaxed and intimate way, making them really look like family.
At certain point, Theon felt the need to forbid any more alcohol consumption; Willa drank like a sponge, and Mayra seemed to be quite good at holding her liquor, but he didn't want to risk his women suffering from a hangover during the travel that awaited them.
Ivy started dozing off, so they decided it was time to call it a night and go to bed. Mayra was going to grab her, but Willa took her first, saying “Tonight you're sleeping with me, little missy. Daddy and mommy got married just today, and married couples sleep together”.
She answered with half-closed eyes, “What about mommy Willa? You are married with daddy as well, right?”
Willa felt a knot in her throat at being called mommy, and looked at Mayra on instinct, who answered with a soft smile and a shrug of her shoulders. “Well, until we can sleep at our own house, we will have to settle with taking turns so you don't have to sleep alone in a strange place”.
As such, they left the dining hall and moved upstairs. Willa left the already sleeping Ivy in her bed and came out to say goodnight to Theon and Mayra. His blonde wife grabbed his shoulder, pressing her modest breasts against his chest and whispering into his ear, “I'm giving her the first night, but I am your wife now as well, so I'm going to need your “attention” very soon”. Then she kissed him, without preambles and deeply. Theon had no doubt about what she was trying to imply, as she grabbed his crotch unashamedly while saying the word “attention”. Something sweet welled up in his chest as he thought he just had his first kiss with his wife, and at the same time, something burned fiercely, lower in his body, at the thought that she really desired him.
Once Theon and Mayra were alone in their room, she took a step towards him and spoke, “I know what you want from me right now, and to be honest I desire it as well and I'm eager to give it to you, but first there is something you must know”.
Theon tilted his head, and Mayra kept talking, “You probably already know that Lost Women unleash the “Marked For Death” curse on men they have sex with, no matter their feelings about it, but being a Lost Woman has another part that only a few know: direct contact with men provokes adverse reactions in our bodies, that become worse as the contact becomes more intimate”. Seeing Theon's worried expression, she clarified, “It's not as tough as it sounds. Groping, kissing and hugging only feels uncomfortable, giving you a blowjob will feel like having a throat infection, and... well, having you inside me will definitely hurt, so please be gentle”.
He moved right in front of her, choosing to forget the questions he had in mind about her late husband at that moment. It was their first time together and he didn't want to ruin it by bringing out bad memories. “I have a very special wedding gift for you. I hope you don't think badly of me for saying this, but I will need to place my right hand between your breasts for a moment”.
Mayra laughed, breaking the tension of the moment. “And here I was thinking what you were going to say”. She took a slow step towards him, letting her huge breasts touch his chest. “I am yours, dear husband, not only because you own me legally, but because I am willing to give myself to you. You can do what you wish with me, no matter the time or the situation. The only thing I ask of you, if I may, is that you refrain from doing anything improper in front of my... our daughter”.
Right after saying that, she put two fingers inside the cleavage of her shirt and started pulling down, until her breasts, encased in a white bra with black embroidery, popped out. Pressing her chest even more against his, Mayra whispered with a seductive purr, “Please help yourself, my dear Master”.
Theon put his hand between her breasts, but what Mayra had never expected was the sudden flash as he pulled his hand back, revealing the structure of a curse. At first, Mayra thought it was strange that Theon had revealed the structure of her slave crest from the front, but then she panicked when she understood what he was really trying to do.
“Theon, no! If you try to tamper with a divine curse like the one of the Lost Women you will instantly die!” He didn't seem worried at all, what made her feel even more worried for some reason.
“Don't worry, babe, do you remember when we stopped at the mountain complex to spend the night? Wow, it feels like an eternity ago, but it was just yesterday. The thing is, I met a man who had tried to steal a Sacred Treasure among the slaves Sev was unloading, and tried to use my power on him. I only tried to reveal the structure of the curse, but I got the powerful feeling that if I kept trying, not only would I fail, but I also would die right on the spot.”.
“That's why I'm telling you to stop this, you jerk!” Mayra screamed at him, not daring to move while the fragile structure of her curse was exposed like that.
“But I have been able to expose the structure of your curse without problem! Doesn't that say anything to you?”
Mayra was about to scream at him again, but she stopped with her mouth open. Her mind raced, going around the information she had just received, and the conclusion she reached had her opening her mouth as much as her jaws allowed. “Are you saying that the curse of the Lost Women is not a divine punishment, but something imposed by The Church through the great tablets all around the world? If that is so, how is it that nobody has been able to break it or even reveal the structure before?”
“Because to reveal the structure of a curse and tamper with it in any way, you need a level of black magic equivalent or higher to the curse itself, and there are no registers of anyone raising above legendary grade in black magic anywhere in the world. I have my theories about several hows and whys of this topic, but I need to talk with a couple of people first. Now, breath deeply and stay as still as you can, this shouldn't hurt, but I don't want to take any chances”.
When he saw that Mayra relaxed, he started tugging at the oily black, sticky strings that formed the curse, changing the placement of some of them, and directly breaking others. The process was long and nerve-wracking, but Theon didn't want to take a rest in case the curse had an auto-rebuild component implemented.
More than two hours later, Theon pulled what seemed to be the thousandth string, and the structure started collapsing. When there was nothing left, Mayra looked with a raised eyebrow. “Weird, I just felt my ears pop, like when you get down of a shuttle after a long trip. I expected something with more... impact, if the curse actually broke”.
She seemed to be in a state close to the shock, not wanting to get her hopes too high regarding being actually free of the curse that had twisted all of her life. Before Theon could say a word to try and calm her down, Mayra placed a hand behind his head to bring him in for a fierce kiss, mashing her breasts against his chest and rocking her hips against his.
After a few seconds, she broke the kiss and looked at Theon, panting but with a surprised expression on her face. “It didn't feel awkward... in fact, it felt kind of good”. Then she hurriedly opened her jacket, undid the button and the hook of her skirt and let it fall to the floor, kicking it aside and showing her delectable curves covered only in stockings, panties and garter belt.
Mayra spread her thighs slightly, and grabbing Theon's hand, she pressed it against the warm mound between her legs. He started rubbing her vulva over her panties, to which she answered with a sigh and smile, and started undressing Theon hurriedly, kissing his chest and neck once she got rid of his shirt.
On the other side, Theon was fondling one of her heavy breasts in his hand, enjoying its soft flesh while his other hand still caressed her pussy over the soft fabric of her underwear, getting a certain degree of pride as he felt it warming up and getting moist.
Mayra unhooked her bra, twisting her shoulders and her body until she was able to to pull it out through one of her sleeves. Her pale breasts appeared in all their naked glory; the slightly dark pink areolas and the nipples weren't too big when compared to the whole chest, but their skin was sliky and they had a roundness that Theon found perfect.
While he looked at her breasts, almost entranced, Mayra started walking backwards, pulling Theon by the shoulders with her and talking to him with a heavy breathing, “I know I should not ask this of you, even more considering that this is our first time together, but please, let's skip the foreplay. I haven't felt a man in six years, and on top of that, it seems this will be the first time I can have sex without feeling pain”.
When the back of her legs touched the bed, Mayra stopped to pull down her panties. Theon could see a thread of transparent love juice between her crotch and the fabric for a brief moment, before it got broken. Mayra laid on the bed and spread her legs for her new love, with her panties still hanging from one of her ankles.
Theon pulled down his pants and underwear in the same motion, his erection jumping free and eliciting a needy, lustful sigh from her. He found really arousing the way her breasts moved with her heaving breath, and he moved to cover her with his body, following his desire. As Theon propped himself on an elbow to grab his manhood with the other hand and guide it to her wet folds, Mayra received him with open arms, embracing him and caressing his back, applying pressure with her hands to hurry him up.
Mayra sucked air between her teeth, only to release it in a long moan when she felt Theon spreading her swollen labia and entering her love tunnel slowly. Her hips buckled when he reached her deepest parts, and she couldn't help but wrap her legs around his waist, not wanting him to leave her for anything in the world. They kissed each other's lips and neck, and Theon even lowered his head to kiss her collarbone, her cleavage and her tits.
Theon pulled back little by little, only to enter her again at the same pace. After a couple minutes of long, slow and deep thrusts, Mayra started to grow impatient. “Are you going easy on me?”
“Well, you said it's been six years since your last time, I didn't want to hurt you by being too rough”. He answered.
She gave him a playful slap on his butt. “Oh, you! This old mare can handle some rough riding, you know?”
“You're not old, you are gorgeous”.
“Shush, boy, you're going to make me fall in love with you if you keep treating me so damn well. Now give it all you've got, fuck me senseless!”
And so he did. Theon started moving fast, but not at top speed yet, because he wanted to enjoy the expression on her face, the shaking of her tits every time he pushed himself deep inside her, her moans of pleasure, and above all, the welcoming, slick warmth of her vagina and how it tightened around his dick. Mayra started moving her legs around his waist to add extra force every time he rammed his member inside her, and her hands on his back tensed, hard enough to leave reddish marks on his skin but not enough to actually scratch him.
Theon raised the pace, starting to feel that the orgasm was inevitable, and Mayra's body seemed to answer in kind, given her own words, “Oh, gods, yes! It doesn't hurt, it only feels good! Now I understand why they call this a woman's joy! Just a little harder, hun, I feel I'm about to cum!”
Gritting his teeth, Theon started moving his hips full throttle, trying to give it his best to not cum before her, but at certain point, the feeling of her hard nipples on his chest, the way her inner walls tensed around his dick as her orgasm approached, and the way her hips buckled won the match, and he couldn't help but coming inside her.
Mayra opened her eyes wide as she heard her husband's moan, and the feeling of the first jets of sperm being shot inside her. A wave of pleasure she had never experienced washed over her, making her fear for an instant that she might faint by the sheer intensity of her climax. For a time that seemed like an eternity for her, she could only hold her lover tight and moan, as the waves of her orgasm made her whole body twitch, her hips moving on their own and meeting the last strokes of his own orgasm.
They stayed like that for a few minutes until, still in post-coital bliss, they turned to lay on their side. They cuddled and kissed, still caressing each other, and when Theon's member slid outside of her, for some unknown reason shefound the feeling of his sperm dribbling from her still swollen and reddened labia terribly arousing.
After an indeterminate time, Mayra started kissing his chest, going down his belly until she reached his manhood. Without a shred of doubt, she took as much of it as she could in her mouth, sucking as she let it slide slowly until it escaped her lips with a pop. Right before going back to her blowjob, she winked at him and said, “You didn't think the night was over already, did you?”