Ink Soaked Penumbra
Chapter 14: Ink Driven Character Development and a Shining Climax
The whole way to the station Yana is wordless. A few sparks ensure that she clung to me the whole way, but a part of me was still expecting some kind of resistance. I’m not sure how or why I was expecting it but I’m a little disappointed when it doesn’t happen. I don’t want her to jump off of sweet silver Sylvia and wind up as a pancake, but somehow seeing someone with so many parallels to myself being so pitiful isn’t encouraging.
She’s not a sympathetic villain. I don’t care if she has reasons to be twisted. I just really can’t bring myself to feel any pity for her.
No one at the station is especially happy to see me, but my friends did me the pleasure of making sure I’d be expected. Guns are trained on me and I don’t blame a single officer worried to see a silver skinned woman on a silver motorcycle.
Yana is taken away from me, and I honestly couldn’t be happier. At least fifteen people must grill me through an interrogation before I see the woman who actually matters. After all of the names I’ve already tried to remember by this point I can’t remember if she’s a sergeant or a detective or a commissioner. I couldn’t care less. All I know is she’s dressed in plain clothes, is moderately pretty, and her last name is Evans.
“So let me get this straight. You only attacked a police department because you had to get a book to stop this Quillspawn who is the reason my officers were acting suspiciously. You tried to steal evidence, but instead this ‘witch’ used a slave to steal it from you and though you were able to stop her from flooding the city with mind controlling ink, you were unable to recover the book.” She sounds uncertain, but I would sound uncertain too. I mean, everyone in Midas City knows that there are things no one would want to know about happen, but well, a witch almost seems silly compared to all of those rumors.
I nod and force a friendly smile. It must be three hours later than when I got here but acting rude or upset isn’t going to help get out of here before another three hours go by. “Trust me, it sounds just as ridiculous to me too. Assaulting a police officer – even if none of it was lethal force – is not something I ever wanted to do. If there’s anything I can do to help them recover or . . .”
“Actually, about three or four hours ago all of the women that you came into contact with reported suddenly feeling faint, and even though they can’t remember any ‘ink’ or other influence, they all report feeling more like themselves than they can ever remember feeling.” Officer Evans, if that’s polite for a member of the police force that doesn’t go hopping over hills in a patrol car (I might have had friends in the department before but they were just grunts and we weren’t that close), actually smiles even if her aura of suspicion doesn’t completely drop away. “The worst any of them reports is confusion about their sexuality. The only other lasting damage is a lock on a door and a few cameras.”
Dealing with the aftershocks of The Argentum Project was a lot worse than this. Comparatively, this is child’s play. Maybe it’s because this time even if I was the antihero again there wasn’t really anything too ambiguous. There’s not much gray area in walking on the right side of the thin silver line between black and gray.
A blush rises to my cheeks as I realize that well . . . I just skipped two days of work. There’s no chance in hell that I’m going to keep that job and security cameras cost a lot. “We can work out a payment plan, unless there’s jail time involved in that.”
“Silver Girl? That is your name right? You broke a few laws, and I know enough people who would just love to use you as the very example of why super powered vigilantes have no place in Midas or anywhere else, but I’d hate to have you in jail if one of those witches show up again! The badged supers program will probably be contacting you, and it might be a good idea to sign up, but . . .” She holds out her hand, and I grin, “I think we can overlook some surveillance equipment just this once.”
I grasp her hand with mine and smile at the very satisfying handshake. You don’t get a lot of good firm handshakes as an antiheroine who doesn’t really deal with the straight and narrow. It feels nice to be able to be fully aligned with the forces of good again even if I don’t follow all of the rules.
Not everyone has to be a Lawful Good Paladin after all.
“Mmhmm . . . it sure is. Silver Girl.” I feel all smiles, and I know that I must be literally glowing at least a little because out of the corner of my eyes my face looks a little brighter than it usually does.
My life feels on the right track for the first time since . . . no, before that. It feels more on track than it did when I was working for Linda by day and protecting what I could by night. It feels as on track as it felt when I left Coredelia over four years ago to go where my heart drew me to the high rooftops and the high adventure. I feel like a kid again, but at the same time I feel like more of an adult than I did the first night I ordered my first glass of wine.
Things aren’t easy but they’re at least going the way that I want them to go in a somewhat controlled fashion. It feels so sweet and relieving. Some weight that was forcing itself down on my back is gone and I’m looking forward to making sure it stays gone.
Evans smiles as she pulls back her hand. “Of course, I’ll need a little more contact information than just the rooftops or the streets. Just in case we need to call you in for some more questioning and so I have something to pass on to the capes?” A part of me hopes that she would want the number for more than just that. Nothing sexual, but it would be flattering if she would consider “bothering” me with some information trusting me to be able to help get the job done right instead of following protocol.
There really isn’t any way I can see myself getting a “silver-signal” but a gal can dream for a silver phone or at least a silver phone number. Well, I have the silver phone. It’s just . . . well . . . different! I’m just so happy.
“No worries, no worries at all . . .” I give her my number, my cell phone, and smile wider. “Call me any time, day or night. Don’t spread it around too much if you can help it though? This is sort of my emergencies only line. I guess that means I should get another phone one of these days, but well . . . I don’t normally need to be called or make a call unless something is going wrong!”
We share a laugh and she nods. “Sure thing, Silver Girl. Here’s my number, call me if you remember anything else we might want to know. Oh, your friends who visited earlier wanted me to let you know they’d be waiting for you back at home.”
“You won’t mind if I try to at least pretend I can keep my home a secret, will you?” Instant camaraderie is something I have definitely missed. It’s a nice feeling to say the least.
“No, I won’t . . .” She hands me her number, and I slide it into the same pouch on my belt as my phone. Once I get done dealing with all of this I’ll have to enter it into my phone . . . oh it feels nice to have trivial things to remember that have to do with my profession – and the one that actually matters to me. It feels like I’m finally using my degree in heroism instead of my degree in being able to sit in a chair or wait tables.
That degree is something most people with a decent amount of common sense are born with.
I stand, and we say our goodbyes before I make my way out of the department. Everyone is all smiles on my way out, and I give them all my wiggling finger wave. It feels nice to be able to use what felt to me like a Silver Girl trademark. I know I’m not the only one who does it, but it didn’t feel right for Patina to do it.
Silver Girl is back, and this time it’s actually the right Silver Girl . . .
Seeing all of those smiles and just feeling the sensation of rightness I’m not sure if I miss it as much as the city missed me. It might be egotism talking, but I just saved Midas City again.
Back on Sylvia again, driving back home with the wind making my hair flail around me like a shining silver banner, I let myself just bask in the feeling of feeling at peace, in my proper place, and . . . being home in city and in spirit.
Damn does it feel good to be me again!
The ride home is made a little bit longer by my own crazy desire to take a couple of victory laps around the last block. It costs me some gas, and I’m already killing myself for letting the tank get so low, but I have enough money to fill her up. If I don’t I think I can call in a few favors.
Every step between the parking garage and my door feels like it’s on clouds.
When I get to our door out of sheer playfulness I knock instead of using my key or just strolling right in. To have a little more fun I press my silver fingertip over the peephole.
From outside of the door I can already hear talking. There have to be at least a good three voices at the bare minimum but I’m guessing there are at least another two or three. I actually believe for once that I’ve done something wonderful enough to deserve all of my family and friends together at once in my apartment to be close to me, to be there with me and all at once feeling like giving me a big pat on the back and a “thanks for saving my ass.”
“Sooorry . . . We don’t want any silver scout cookies, they all go right between my eyes. I heard ever since the scout leader got her groove back she’s been so bright that the sun looks kinda dim, and I’d hate to burn out my retinas before I turn thirty.” Olivia’s sweet playful voice has never sounded better.
I pull my finger back away and lean close to the hole with a whine. “Aw come on! If I don’t sell any cookies then I won’t be able to go on the field trip to the zoo, and I hear there’s an exotic golden siren that has the prettiest songs in the whole world! Pleeeease open up? I promise that some of the cookies go to your thighs and not your mind! You have to at least try one of the sparked kisses before you turn them down . . .”
The door flings open and before I can react my gray eyed sweetheart pulls me down into a hard kiss. It’s a kiss that feels like it’s making up for lost time as much as it feels desperate and craving. All of the desire my body kept burning from the kiss with Yanuka relights and I grab her up, pulling her into my arms.
Her legs wrap around my waist and the arm that’s not curled under her ass to hold her tight is cradling the back of her neck as my silver lips mash with her own adorably pink set. No, I was wrong, this kiss doesn’t have anything to do with Yanuka or Yana or anyone else that I’ve ever met in my life besides her. This is a moment carved in time between Olivia and me, of Olivia and me, seared deeper than anything could ever burn and filled with silver and gold concrete.
She might be Olivia and not Aureus but her grip on me feels stronger for the inherent vulnerability of flesh over metal. The strength of this embrace, of this melding, of this experience is deeper than the physical. I can feel the understanding in her just as clearly as if it were verbalized.
Slowly as she presses tighter and tighter to me and her arms turn harder with that sweet gold covering she finally breaks the kiss. “Those lips weren’t sparked . . . I think . . . that’s false advertising.”
“The sparked ones come later when everyone we know isn’t through the doorway . . . Mind if I put you down for a minute? Though goddess, Olivia . . . I missed you so much . . .” I can feel my eyes shining and the giggles won’t hold themselves back as I hold her against me tightly as I can without crushing her. She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, those gorgeous gray eyes, her sweet almost red hair that hints at just how passionate and firey she can be . . . her sweet soft skin . . . she’s so wonderful.
With a playful huff Olivia’s arms turn back to flesh and she hops down off of me. As soon as she hits the floor she grabs my arms and pulls me in with so much force I almost fall over and the door closes quickly after. Sometimes it’s hard to forget that someone so small could snap my arm off if I was ever stupid enough to go for a round of arm wrestling. “I missed you too . . . but come on, we’ve been waiting!”
Just as I thought, on the couch, the chair, standing and sitting is everyone I would want to see. Alyssa must have dropped by her apartment because sitting on the chair with her legs crossed elegantly she’s dressed in some clothes that actually fit. Susan is leaning back on the couch with bright eyes and blonde hair that I’ve never been so glad was blonde. Valerie is sitting beside her and her eyes look like they’re glowing too. Beside her Aniela . . . Silhouette . . . looks just as glad, but she still mouths “sorry” as soon as she knows we have eye contact. Mystic leans against the couch beside Susan, and I really hope she didn’t playfully drop any secrets.
I’d almost forgotten about Mystic! Lucky for me she looks just fine, tortoiseshell glasses resting on her nose above a normal smile and not a grin. I still feel stupid for not realizing Mystic had gone from school teacher to prostitute in the time I was gone. One of these days I’ll get the hang of that.
Everyone here like this, everyone free, everyone safe . . . I can feel the tears starting to build up in my eyes. “Thank you everyone . . . I couldn’t ask for a better group of fri- . . . for a better family.”
There are smiles all around, and for the first time since Chronos . . . I really feel at home.
Late at night when everyone else is gone and I’m thoroughly embarrassed and praised far too much, Olivia and I curl up in bed with our legs entwined and our gazes locked. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a pair of eyes that come close to looking even half as pretty as yours . . .”
“I bet you’ve seen a lot of prettier eyes, but I’ve never seen eyes that sparkle from the inside every time the pretty sparkly lips below curl into a smile. You look so pretty all silver, Sarah . . . and I know, I already saw The Domina like this, all shiny and sparkly and all of that, but she wasn’t you. She didn’t smile like you do . . . She wasn’t you even if she was close. It’s not like you weren’t always the prettiest and sweetest woman ever before, but now, just . . . you look so much happier when you smile.” Her lips press to mine, and they stay there when she speaks feeling like every syllable is another kiss. “I’m glad you’re you again . . .”
“I have not . . . Thanks . . . and I’m glad that your head isn’t all full of icky goop . . . We’re never going to do something stupid like that again, splitting up like that.” I press my lips more firmly into hers, and just melt.
Her legs tighten around mine and I mewl at the feeling of her tender warmth against my leg as well as the feeling of her leg against mine. I’ve been so worried about her, worried that we’d never be able to do this again with her mind working right, and now here she is with that sweet pretty mind of hers working like a charm . . . her gold is safe right along with the surrounding grey matter.
The leg she has pressed up tight between my thighs turns gold, and its firmness as she rubs it against me over and over makes me mewl and clench my thighs. “No, we’re not . . . Was my idea anyway . . . Sure we’d done it before, but well, we can’t take a risk like that again, not knowing just how stupid it can be . . . I remember every little sick thought she wrote into my head, the way she used me against Mystic and I . . . I knew I was supposed to trick you into going to Valerie without knowing it . . .”
I slide a hand slowly along her back and grasp the sweet curve of her ass to pull her harder against my own leg. For just a second I let both my leg and my hand spark, and she cries out so loud I’m surprised my ears don’t ring.
“And I’ve done worse . . . It doesn’t matter. You know what I did to Jade and Silhouette too, and you’ve had a chance to talk to the later about it. What you do when you’re under someone else’s control isn’t your fault. I know that. You know that . . .” My other hand strokes slowly along her cheek, fingertips lightly sparking as they slide down along her neck eliciting more and more of her loud whines that make me clench in ways I don’t remember doing even with Yana’s ink making my sparks sizzle inside of me. “Even I played my role in her story till the end . . .”
“Who knows . . . Alyssa thinks you might have been written to win. She said that in every book, no matter how twisted the villains were, no matter how much the heroines suffered . . .” Olivia arches up and nibbles just faintly on my ear in just the right way, “. . . they always found love in the end.”
Something shudders inside of me, and it’s not because Olivia’s fingers turned to gold right when they found my nipples, although that helps with another shuddering. “So you think that . . . that all of this could have just been some elaborate romance story written by that drippy . . . mmmmm . . . witch just to have me turn out happy in the end? Do you really think that?”
“I didn’t say that I thought that . . . oh!” Olivia’s whole face twists in the prettiest way as I melt more sparks in between her burning thighs. It’s easy to use them just to feel good. I didn’t even know they could overload someone for years, after all . . . “Just that Alyssa came across that in her research. And if it was . . . would that be so bad? It doesn’t justify what she did, but you do seem a lot more . . . committed. Something is different in your eyes, something . . .”
Before she can say another word I latch my lips as tight to hers as I can, kissing her hard and passionately as I send shuddering spark after spark right to the tip of her sweet needy little clit. Every spark makes her shudder, makes her eyes flutter, and try as she might she just can’t seem to keep up the kiss. That’s easy enough to fix, and I manage it just by making every small part of my lips come alive with sweet mind sizzling sparks. Her lips stay stuck to mine as she shudders and gasps in the kiss.
Carefully I shift positions, and her body can hardly put up much of a fight when her senses are being so tenderly stimulated. I break the kiss as I slide her onto her back, straddling her as I grasp her wrists and pin her down to the bed.
With another moan of my own from the sensation, from the raw feelings of seeing her like this and the feedback from my sparks as I start to melt them out of my own sex into hers. She tries to say something, to speak, and I just shift, locking my legs around one of hers to grind a sparked thigh into her tender flesh all over again.
I lean down close against her, letting a dull purr melt under my breath as my body presses to hers and my lips rest beside her ear. It requires some bending with the height difference, but its more than worth it. “That something, Olivia . . . Is realizing how much I love you, and that I don’t ever want to let you go. Stay here in Midas. Let’s get a bigger place, a better place. Let’s have a real home together . . . It’s never felt like you really decided to stay or just never left and I . . . I want you to stay. I love you Olivia, I really do . . .”
“You . . . Oooh fuck Sarah it almost m-m-makes it hard to breathe when you do that . . . Makes it easier to listen though, easier to hear when you’re being serious . . .” Shakily I pull back just so I can look into her eyes. She smiles, and her pretty gray eyes shine as much as she says mine do if they shine at all. “I want that too . . . I’ve just been afraid to suggest it. Things have been tense, but when we’re together . . .”
“It just . . . feels like it’s all worth it that way, doesn’t it . . .? Like even if our chosen profession is something only a masochist could do, even if the world really is getting worse every day . . .” Olivia arches up against me, and I grind back down.
Tears sparkle in her eyes as I release her wrists and she reaches up and strokes over the tender skin of my ass. She always knows just where to knead and squeeze to make me clench and grind closer. “At least we have each other . . . at least after we’re done with our patrol, most of it spent pressed close anyway, and always together, then we can still be together, without anything else to worry about. Just . . . serenity.”
We’re a team . . . just the two of us. Everyone else I’ve ever been this close to there’s always been qualifiers, always something standing in the way of it being right, but not now. She kneads harder and I spark her fingers to make them grasp me even harder.
Her eyes slowly melt from gray to gold as she looks up to me, kneading so good as I hover a pair of lightly sparked fingertips over her nipples, letting them graze just enough to make her whole body shudder and to make her moans more and more pleading as she tries to make the touch more. Just when her moans get too loud, and she kneads just hard enough I grasp both sweetly hardened points of flesh and spark thumb and forefinger hard as I can without risking fuzzing her mind with more than pleasure.
“I want to make us more . . . more than just lovers, more than just room mates, more, just . . .” My voice breaks with a cry as one of her hands pulls away from my ass, and slides under the curve of my body, the flesh of her fingers teasing along my slit. “Ooolivia . . . I . . . I know how The Domina and . . . and Valerie, and I . . . I want to . . . to . . .”
“You want that with m-m-me . . .? Ooh fuck, Sarah, stop the sparks, stop the spaaarks! I need to think, need to be able to be more . . . clear headed . . .” Her eyes do look a little bit more glazed than I’d meant to make them and it makes me blush to realize it.
Slowly I ease off the sparks and stroke her nipples before letting my hands rest over her breasts and just slowly knead, melting down to lay flush against her as she pulls her hand back. I didn’t even know what I was going to say until I said it, it just felt so urgent, so insistent, so . . . just . . . what I needed to say, what I really wanted. We haven’t really known each other that long, not even a year, not the over nine months that the other me and Valerie knew each other before . . .
It’s stupid, it’s impulsive, but as I gaze into her golden eyes I can’t find myself wanting anything else. Being with her, being even more of a family . . . it feels stupid so fast, but it feels right too.
I know that I can protect her, I know I can protect a daughter, it just . . . this must have been how The Domina felt. Valerie said that the way the other me had acted about it was just so much more intense than she’d ever acted about anything before. She said she could see the love, the devotion glowing in her eyes and even if she’d sprung it on Valerie as a surprise she couldn’t bring herself to be unhappy.
The Domina had given Valerie a daughter the night before she’d lost her mind in the Argentum Array’s powering chamber . . . Now, Olivia laying underneath me, still smiling, looking apprehensive but loving, we’re not on the cusp of anything like that. Our biggest worry is gone, everything is as it should be.
“Yes, Olivia . . . I know its crazy, I know its quick . . . but I can’t stop thinking it, and every moment I keep staring into your eyes I realize more and more that it’s what I’ve wanted so much . . . it’s what’s made me worried or angry when something between us turned sour or every time I was afraid I’d said or done the wrong thing . . .”
My hands move to find hers and as soon as they do our fingers start to twine. She looks speechless, but still not aghast like a part of me is afraid she should be. More words rise to my lips and I can’t hold them back. I need her to know just how I feel.
“When I ran away after I found out you were a trap for me I . . . I ran because I knew if I wasn’t able to help you, I’d never really have this again, this chance, this . . . us. You were always on my mind, through it all . . . I was sure Yana’s call was a trap, but I went because I knew it would lead me to the cure for what had happened to you . . . I know it’s sudden, it’s crazy, it’s—“ She cut’s me off in the sweetest way possible as her lips press to mine.
It’s not a raw passionate kiss. It’s something more. Her hands pull away from mine, and she slides them slowly over my cheeks. Each finger moves just enough to feel against my face as her lips press more against mine in the softest, most delicate way I’ve ever felt.
Things feel slowed down, as if each gentle movement of her fingers and her lips is all that lets time pass. Tears slide down my face. I didn’t even realize they were forming or . . .
Her lips pull away, but they stay only far enough away that when she moves them to talk they don’t touch mine. “It is crazy . . . and you’re crazy . . . but that’s why I love you. There’s this impatience inside of you, that even when you’re ready to wait a million years, you’re doing it . . . faster . . . than anyone else is or could. You take relaxing seriously . . . And you know . . . that would give me a damned good reason to stay. Not that I don’t have plenty, but it might be fun to explain to my family that my silver eyed girlfriend knocked me up . . .”
If she wasn’t saying that in just the right voice the tears would stop being happy ones, but she was. She’s so sincere, and I can feel it from every part of her. She’s already met my “family” and they got along rather well . . . As crazy as it is . . . “Then . . .”
“Yes . . . I want it too . . .” The look of happiness on her face makes her look so young, and for just a moment I want to reconsider, to rethink how I could come up with this, but it’s too right.
Something feels bright just between my eyes, in the center of my chest, and then between my lower lips. Every second I can feel the lower bright, sparkling feeling growing stronger and stronger making my toes curl and my eyes flutter. “I don’t know if I could hold it back even if I tried . . .”
It’s a hard feeling to describe, but I can see the understanding in her eyes as I shift, and grind my sparkling desire down into hers. It feels so good, like letting open a dam I never knew was there, and every motion against her feels more intense than any I’ve ever felt before. Everything inside of me feels like it’s pulsing and humming with energy, with light, and when Olivia starts to moan and clutch at the sheets, her hips matching every movement of mine, I can feel it melting through into her.
Almost like how it felt when I was using Yana’s ink to link with women’s minds, I can feel a new conduit forming from the inside of me to the inside of her. It’s so warm, and each moment her body presses tighter into mine I feel that warmth thrust deeper into us both, the release of it into her feeling almost as good as the pleasure of her quivering cleft meeting mine.
Usually it takes longer, or more, but I already feel on the edge of the sweet golden abyss. There’s more of that bright sparkling inside of her than inside of me, and I can . . . I can feel the pleasure she’s feeling. It’s not like it’s happening to me, but I can feel it like another sensation all together.
I can feel the connection between us, not just the physical, somehow growing, linking, some part of us deeper than our bodies or our minds twining . . . and I can feel her own love, her own desire, her own fulfillment as she shudders more against me and her voice grows louder with every scream. It’s unreal, like something out of a dream, but at the same time I’ve never felt something so real, so intense so . . .
“Olivia . . . I love you!”
“I love you too Sarah!”
Our screams mingle and I can feel her thighs clenching just as mine do. It feels like an eternity of arching, of toes curling until they feel like they’re turning white, all of the warmth melting into her, filling her, making it happen, giving her the gift of life . . .
And then falling on top of her, tired bodies holding close, as we cuddle, wordlessly expressing out feelings just by feeling them. The sparking is gone, and nothing feels quite as bright, but I can still feel her . . .
It might have been irresponsible, and my sparking might have accidentally swayed her, but I don’t think so . . . for once, I feel clear headed and everything feels . . . right.