Message-ID: <60334asstr$1275786609@assm.asstr.org>
NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 05 Jun 2010 08:00:02 -0500
From: "Elf M. Sternberg" <elf@pendorwright.com>
Subject: {ASSM} Journal Entry 140 / 01054  Razing Castles (MF)
Lines: 327
Date: Sat, 05 Jun 2010 21:10:09 -0400
Path: assm.asstr.org!not-for-mail
Approved: <assm@asstr.org>
Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories
Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d

Razing Castles
Attendes 1054
My footsteps echoed on the beautiful grey flagstones restrained to the
floor with fine mortar. I took a deep breath, panned back and forth with
my flashlight, tried to rid myself of the feelings that coursed through
me. An unidentifiable ache lived behind my breastbone, and tears
threatened to well up in my eyes if I let my emotions loose for more
than a second.

Here, in here, Rhysh Castle, I had learned how to be a beautiful slave,
worshipful first to a Master and then to a Mistress. Here I had learned
about bodies and knots, needles and knives. Here I'd learned to give as
good as had been given to me.

I wasn't the only one who was going to cry, or who had cried, this
night.

"Fuck magic," I growled. Somehow, this all seemed so unreal. The Hall
Committee calling a Meeting of Mages? Unheard of. Even the term itself
was so antithetical to everything I believed in as a technological
being. Three AI failures in a millennia couldn't be ignored, however,
and the only thing related to all three failures was the location.

Either that or the activities. Yet every AI who had reviewed Lynn,
Raine, and Mindy had found no fluctuation in their behavior that might
be caused by perceptive difficulties. Only AI volunteers are taken for
delicate assignments, and while Rhysh Castle was considered a very
important and valuable post, it was also a very delicate one. AI's
aren't like organics. Their respect for the post of Rhysh AI was
reflected strongest in the fact that so few asked for the position.

That left the conclusion of the Mages. Ley Lines. I suppose that it was
destined to happen, and the fact that one of the Lines arced over the
Ruins of Luccas and terminated here only contributed to the feelings of
the Mages. I've seen drawings of the Ley Lines of Pendor, and they're
impressive. But that didn't help the fact that I was walking through
Rhysh for the last time. It didn't help that half of my being rejected
the explanation as mumbo-jumbo.

I made my way through empty rooms and hollow hallways, abusing both
privilege and privacy. I imagined quite a few people would haved liked
to have been doing what I was doing right then, walking through the
Castle the night before its...

I breathed the word aloud. "Demolition."

My gods, I was crying again. My free hand gripped the cherry_
red_stained oak bannister as I climbed to the rampart where Borodir had
first taught me how to fly. From here, I could see the daylight patio
where I had first met Lynn in her human form.

And from here, I could see The City. Too big to be just a town anymore.
I couldn't see it, but I knew where the Hex was down there, hidden
behind two taller buildings. I thought about what this all meant to me,
and I sat down on one of the stone benches, and I wept silently at the
dim lights spread out across the valley before me.

Hands touched my back, warm hands that didn't startle. More grateful for
companionship than I was startled by my not being alone, I looked over
at my shoulder. The hand was feminine, human, with long slender fingers
unadorned by jewelry. I reached up across my chest and touched that
hand. The hand flexed slightly, turning me around. My gaze followed the
hand, along the wrist and up the arm to the shoulder... and right into
the face of the last AI of Rhysh Castle, deceased.

"Mindy?"

She nodded, but didn't speak. Instead, she turned, walking back into the
Castle. As she moved, a curious haze seemed to follow her imprecisely as
if her form were shrouded in a soft, white fog.

"Hey!" I said as she turned the corner and disappeared into the castle.
I ran after her. In the hallway I heard her footsteps descending the
curving stone stairs towards the Great Hall of Rhysh Castle. "Mindy?" I
asked again.

"Down here, Ken." Her voice had a softer timbre to it than I was used to
hearing. It felt warmer, more human, to my ears. It was also most
definitely Mindy's voice.

For some reason it never occurred to me that this might not be Mindy. I
skipped down the stairs two at a time, but I never broke out into a run.

I emerged into the Great Hall of Castle Rhysh, now filled with a
thousand tiny yellow flames, candles everywhere around me. Mindy stood
in the midst of the candles, in the middle of the floor, alone next to a
four_poster bed that hadn't been there minutes before, when I had first
walked through the Hall.

She smiled, one hand reaching forward to me, beckoning. I walked towards
her, trusting. Trusting. I wondered why I felt so safe and secure.
Weirdness like this usually makes me paranoid; after all, there are
enough people out there who want to kill me to make paranoia a great
survival mechanism. This, though... this felt so unreal.

I walked into her open arms, and held her body close to mine. She closed
her arms about my waist, returning the gentle clasp, resting her head
against my chest. "You were crying," she said, finally.

"It's all going to be torn down, Mindy. So much happened here, so many
lives changed. More for the better than the worse, I like to hope. This
place is so important to me, I can't believe, I don't want to believe
it's all going to be gone soon. Damnit, Mindy, I met Aaden here! I fell
in love here, over and over, cherishing it each and every time,
appreciating what I had and what I had found. I can't believe that all
the stone and wood and metal, all the water and all the fire... it's
just going to be disassembled. Demolished."

"Uh-huh," she hummed softly, her hands caressing my shoulders.

I slowly pulled away from her, holding her at arms' length. I'm used to
seeing her as an ELF, ghostly and shimmering. Now, she was full-fleshed
and human and very, very beautiful.

<!-- WTF blurb OVER? -->In the back of my mind, I felt surprise that the only thing that
surprised me about her was her apparent humanity. <!-- WTF blurb OVER?
-->"Mindy?" I asked, looking up into her eyes. "There's no tactful way
to say this, but... aren't you dead?"

"Don't you believe in ghosts, Ken?" She pulled me towards the bed,
wheeling me around and then gently coaxing me down until I was
horizontal, my legs dangling over the edge.

I smiled up at her. "To be honest... no."

"Believe in me, Ken." Her hands stroked the soft fabric of my shirt,
opening the buttons one by one.

I looked up into her face, framed by soft, golden curls. Large, almost
purple eyes flecked with silver topped a small, slim nose and full,
expressive lips of soft pink, and I knew her pussy would be the same
color.

I reached up and pulled at the bows above her shoulder, freeing the lace
shrift that concealed her pale body underneath. I pushed it down, and
her pliant, large breasts almost seemed to tumble into my hands.
"Mmmm..." she sighed. "Nice. Ken... Believe in me one last time."

I smiled up at her and caressed the soft flesh gently. Her body was warm
under my fingers, and her hand stroked along my shirt, calmly undoing
the buttons.

I smiled up at her as her fingers caressed my chest, her fingers leaving
a soft rhythmic trail along my skin. I gasped, feeling my lust seem to
'catch' in my brain.

She slowly rolled over onto her side, onto the bed. I noted, again
without surprise, that the shrift I had been struggling with so
pleasantly a moment before had now vanished, leaving her naked but for a
pair of brown, feminine boots, almost a trademark among the three
AI-ELF's of Rhysh Castle.

I reached up to carsess those large breasts, and her face reflected
sudden pleasure, her eyes open and her smile wide. "You were always so
very beautiful, Mindy."

"Were?" she replied, giggling.

"Okay, are," I said, my hands sliding down her soft belly, unmarred by a
navel, a feature I found a little jarring, but not too badly. As my
fingers slid over the wheat-colored fleece that protected her
femininity, she raised her hips against my probing fingers, moaning
softly. Her warm body rolled slightly towards me, pressing her calves
against my own. My fingers slid deeper, parting her swelled lips,
feeling the moisture of her sex against my fingers. She gasped. "You
want more?"

"I'm a virgin, Ken," she moaned softly. "I want you to take me one first
time, one last time, before..."

"Before what?" I asked, curious.

"Before I go forever."

Oddly enough, the answered satisfied me, and I slowly slid two fingers
against her cunny, sliding them inwards until they wouldn't slide any
further. "Do you feel that?" I smiled.

She gasped. "Please... I need to know what it's like, in this form, in
this place. Just once. Ken, please..."

I smiled downwards at her. Her attitude emboldened me, as if she were
encouraging me on without words. I still felt as if I were in a dream.
"I'm going to kiss you there, Mindy," I said as I sat up and eased
myself down between her legs, pushing them apart with my hands. She
stared down at me, her eyes wide, as I opened her up with my guiding
hands. I leaned down and hovered abover her sex, covering it softly with
my warm breath. "Ken, please," she moaned.

"You know I can't stand to see someone beg, Mindy," I laughed, kissing
her mound gently through the soft, yellow curls.

"I... >gasp<... I know," she moaned. Her lips parted as under their own
violition, willing me into her body. I kissed her hood, the same color
as the lips of her mouth, and felt her clitoris underneath, already
urgently ready. I circled her labia with lips and tongue, reaching up
with my arms over her hips to grasp her fingers in mine and be a part of
her as my mouth probed and circled this new, beautiful woman beneath me.
I knew I'd never see her again, that if this were a ghost, a dream, or
an AI's hallucination that whatever the illusion could be, it could
never be again.

"You're sweet, Mindy," I said. "I like the way you taste, and I like the
way you fight to maintain your dignity as my tongue probes and caresses
you." I did as I spoke, kissing her cunt gently, applying pressure
directly to her clitoris. She moaned, her mouth wide open. Her skin
glistened with sweat in the light of the thousand candles. The tension
in her thighs grew explosive, and finally she came, screaming, and it
took my strength to hold on and not let her get away from me, not buck
me off.

"Ken," she moaned, not raising her head or opening her eyes. "Finish
it."

"Your wish is my command, my lady," I sighed. Her legs were parted, her
cunt wet, as I moved between them, over her. And then I realized I was
still wearing my clothing. I slid out of my pants and shoes quickly,
grateful for a lifetime habit of not wearing restrictive clothing,
leaving my opened shirt on just out of a want for speed, even if I
wanted the act itself to last a long time.

"Are you ready, Mindy?"

"Yes," she moaned, raising her head just a little to look at me. I
looked down at my erection and knelt forward, pressing it between her
legs, at her little hole, ready for me. I pressed inwards, sliding into
her, pressing up against her maidenhead. And then with one powerful
thrust I drove into her, and she gasped as her hymen tore away and my
cock slid up to fill her.

I smiled down at her, and she smiled back. Her eyes were beautiful. I
began to rock my hips, moving in a small oval of motion, rocking back
and forth, sliding my cock in and out of her. Her moans were loud and
passionate, small closed-mouth "Mmms" of pleasure as I made love to her.

She threw her legs over my buttocks, and the rounded heels of her boots
pressed against my thighs on every withdrawl. I could feel my climax,
dim and in the future, somewhere, the signal to me that eventually
everything, even lovemaking, must stop sometime. I looked down, looked
at where we were joined, my cock within her body, driving deeper into
her with every thrust. She raised her hips slightly off the bed,
encouraging me to a better angle, and I took that angle and thrust
harder into her. We began to leave lovemaking behind, becoming raw in
our passionate need for our pleasures. I started to thrust against her
hips, fucking her, pounding into her. She seized my wrists with her
hands and screamed out my name as she came, and then I shouted hers as
well as I filled her cunt with my semen.

We didn't move for several minutes after that. Instead, we just stared
at each other's eyes, waiting for the other to make the first, final
move. Finally, I made it, because my arms just would not hold me up for
much longer. I rolled over to one side, lying down next to her.

As I lay next to her, the candles about me started to wink out one by
one, very slowly. Finally, all the doubts and curiosities that I had
felt earlier welled into my mind, and I had to ask, "Mindy, tell me...
are you a ghost? Are you real? You felt, you feel real to me-- you
certainly felt real while we made love!-- and yet... you don't."

"I'm real," she assured me, a soft moan escaping her as she rolled over
onto one side. "I'm really a ghost." She stroked my naked chest with her
hand. "I needed to say goodbye... and when I heard you crying, I knew
you were the one I was going to be saying goodbye to."

"A lot of people are crying tonight," I said.

Her lips smiled, but her eyes didn't mirror them. "I know. And you need
to know something, Ken. The decision you've made is the right one. Raze
this place to the ground. It's not evil, Ken... no place is ever
intentionally evil, it's the people who make it so. And this place was
always a place of fun and laughter and growing. Rhysh was never evil.
But it's in the wrong place. I need you to plant trees here. Oaks,
redwoods, evergreens. Trees that grow old with dignity. Don't put an
SDisk in its place, and don't make it special. It already will be." She
kissed my cheek. "And wherever you build the new Rhysh castle, that will
be the right place... it will be right. I can tell you that much."

I felt sleepy, but I remembered her words as I seemed to fade away from
her. "I needed to be loved, Ken. And I needed to say goodbye," she
whispered into my ear. "Goodbye, Ken."

"Goodbye... Mindy." The last candle winked out.

            *            *            *

I awoke with a start. I was still lying on the four-poster bed, a bed
which looked like one of many stored down in the Rhysh props department.
I checked my watch and found that I still had an hour until dawn and the
arrival of the wrecking crews. My flashlight, forgotten earlier, lay on
the floor by the bed, shining out into the cold darkness of the Great
Castle Hall. Cold, dark and empty; no candles, no Mindy. I dressed
quickly and made for a side door to the maintenance routes out of the
Castle... but before I left, I turned to give the room one last glance.

The bed had vanished.

            *            *            *

I had Halloran do a diagnostic when I got home. No AI logged any traffic
of any kind into or out of Rhysh while I had been there. The groundwires
had been cut earlier that week, including the power lines. As far as he
could tell, I had been alone in Rhysh Castle until the morning of its
demolition.

I believe in magic, for I believe in Oenone. I'm almost ready, then, to
believe that I made love with the ghost of an AI, even if that by itself
goes against much of what I believe in. But I'm writing this down
because it happened to me, and I don't know what to call it. And I hope,
if she's listening, that Mindy doesn't mind that this time, I didn't get
her permission before writing about her.

----------------------
The Journal Entries of Kennet R'yal Shardik 
and Related Tales.

The entire archive of stories can be found at:
http://www.pendorwright.com/journals

Copyright 2006 Elf Mathieu Sternberg.
Distributed under the Creative Commons License BY-ND-NC/1.0
Some Rights Reserved. 

Elf's latest stories are available in paperback!  Buy 
the genderbending novel _Sterlings_, available
now from http://stores.lulu.com/elfsternberg

--

-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| alt.sex.stories.moderated ------ send stories to: <story-submit@asstr.org>|
| FAQ: <http://assm.asstr.org/faq.html> Moderators: <story-admin@asstr.org> |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|ASSM Archive at <http://assm.asstr.org>   Hosted by <http://www.asstr.org> |
|Discuss this story and others in alt.sex.stories.d; look for subject {ASSD}|
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+