Sincerest Form
I felt my form flicker as my adventurer sat down on the bed, methodically removing his armor and boots. Piece by piece, Rhett peeled back layers until he was left in just a simple tunic and trousers. He looked softer, smaller, than I’d come to know him while, for a month or more, we’d made our way through the labyrinth. Of course, I’d known the metal plates and leather bindings hadn’t been part of his body. I’d seen the dungeon’s monsters scrape and scratch and attempt to rend those coverings that kept his true body safe.
Well, its other monsters.
“Mim?”
The sound of the name he’d given me still seemed strange, after a lifetime of not having one. Of not having anyone who had any reason to call me anything.
Again, my form quivered anxiously, the mutable flesh rippling as if struggling to hold the shape it’d chosen. Which was fair. As a mimic, I’d never maintained a single form this long. But Rhett seemed to like it. I’d seen him admire it many times as we moved through the brassier-lit halls. Had seen his gaze linger on the statue I’d stolen it from in the first place, back when he’d been just another faceless adventurer and I’d been nothing more than one more danger waiting in the dark.
Except Rhett hadn’t been yet another hero. I’d tried to lure him, like I had with others before, hiding as a chest that could have been filled with anything at all, the mystery and potential typically enough to tempt most. But he’d walked right past.
So I’d transformed into treasure, a pile of gold and jewels, glittering and irresistible. Most gloryseekers who’d come before had fallen for that form. Even I knew how enticing I looked like that, all bold colors and sleek shapes. It begged a person to run their hands over and through it, to claim it — any part they could — as their own.
But Rhett hadn’t.
He’d just kept making his way through the dungeon’s dangers. I should have left him to it. Yet I’d followed him. Trying form after form after form in a desperate attempt to draw his attention. And with each new one, I’d wondered why. What was it about this hero that made me want to take and keep more of him than what it took to survive? I had to know. Looking at him now, vulnerable and laid bare on that bed, I still needed to know.
He tilted his head, his hazel eyes studying me in the soft lamplight. “You look confused.” He held out his hand to me. “Remember what we talked about? If you want something, you need to ask me. I can’t answer, until you ask.”
Right. The labyrinth had an ecosystem, a society of sorts. A hierarchical structure informed by instincts and honed by survival skills of strength or stealth. But, out here in the wider world, they used words. They talked. Less efficient but, I supposed, it had the possibility of being more precise.
I swallowed, feeling the parts of me that had formed vocal chords. “Why did we leave the labyrinth?” Why had we come here? To this inn, where I could hear the sounds of humans and elves and other word-wielders through the thin, improbably penetrable walls. They were everywhere. Interacting with one another always. A constant stream of their noise had surrounded me, smothering me, at all times ever since we’d stepped foot into this town of his.
He frowned. “I told you; I’d gone to the labyrinth to defeat the horde of demons that had been destabilizing the dungeon and threatening the neighboring towns.” He lifted his shoulder, the one he’d injured in battle, in a ginger roll of the aching joint. “After we took them down, I had no reason to stay.”
I looked away, the corners of my lips falling and my brow wrinkling without my permission.
“Mim?”
I shook my head, forcing my face to steady. To remain the beautiful, marblesque form Rhett loved.
“Mim,” he said as he stood, taking my hand in his, “we couldn’t stay there. You know that.” He pulled me toward the bed. “Even with the demons gone, we made too many enemies in the dungeon to stay. We’d never be safe there.”
Were we safe here? In this town, full of people and noise and spaces so bright and open and unknown it overwhelmed me. “I don’t belong here.”
His hand reached up to cup my face, forcing me to look into the fire that blazed behind his eyes. “I couldn’t leave you there. They would have killed you.”
I shut my eyes and tried to shake my head, still held gently captive by him. What did that matter? It was the way of the world. My world. One killed lesser creatures to survive and, in turn, were killed in kind. It made sense.
“And I just…” I felt his hand slide from my face into my hair, touching the strands that mimicked the soft, flowing texture of his own while still maintaining the blocky, half-crumbled style and color of the statue. “I couldn’t stand the idea of living in a world that didn’t have you in it.”
I squeezed my eyes closed, even as my traitorous body turned to his, nuzzling helplessly against his wrist and forearm. “You don’t even know me.” He knew this version of me. Some copy of some crumbled copy of someone who existed at the dawn of the dungeon. But that wasn’t me. I wasn’t even sure I knew who or what that was. Who were you, when you could be anything?
“I know you.” His hand palmed the back of my skull possessively. “I have seen you battle for your life. For my life. I’ve seen you become whatever you need to be to survive, to thrive in a world that would crush anyone less clever, less adaptive. You are amazing.” His other hand came up to brush his thumb against the corners of my eyes. “And it kills me that you can’t see that.”
My own hand reached up to flutter beside his temple, afraid to actually touch. “Maybe I should steal your eyes,” I said as I felt my own shift, changing shape and color to match his, “so I can.”
He laughed and turned his face to kiss my palm. “If only your power worked that way.”
My power. He made it sound impressive, instead of just instinctual. This part of myself that often felt bigger than me like some genetic legacy that controlled me more than I could ever control it. “I like looking at you better anyway,” I said as I trailed my hand down his neck and over his chest. He always felt so solid. Even outside his armor, his body felt steady, like he was so sure what he was that he could be nothing but that. That felt powerful. In a way I would never understand but desperately wanted to. “I like touching you.”
He lifted the hem of his tunic over his head and tossed it to the floor. “Touch as much as you like.” He leaned forward to press firm lips against my neck.
I laughed, letting claws form at the tips of my fingers as I gingerly dragged them over his chest and abdomen. “Be careful what you ask for.”
He sucked in a breath, making the muscles there flex and twitch beneath my fingers. “I trust you.”
A hero who trusted a monster. It shouldn’t have been possible. It flew in the face of everything — every instinct and unwritten law — that had dictated my life. Yet here we were.
He leaned forward to press firm lips against my neck. “I want to touch you too.”
My thoughts stalled for a moment. I wasn’t built like him. I glared at the dress that draped over me before ending in a cracked and jagged rock-like pattern at my feet. Yes, it flowed and felt as much like cloth as my brain could manifest but, at its most elemental form, it was flesh. It didn’t come off, like his clothes did.
He lifted my face to meet his gaze. “I told you, I know you.” He let his hands drift lower, over my shoulders and down my arms. “You are you, no matter what you look like.” I gasped as his hand suddenly gripped my hips and pulled them against his. “So stop trying to look for ways to make this work. Just let it.” He swayed our bodies, pressing them together in a way that left me shivering and breathless. “Feel it.”
A needy whimper escaped my lips as I felt his hardness against me, felt my own body soften and melt like molten wax, eager to accept every thrust and grind he gave. “Tell me what you want.” The pleading words wept from me. I would give him anything. Would become whatever he wanted, so long as he didn’t stop.
“I told you,” he said as he continued his torturously slow tease, “I want you.”
“But,” my broken voice sputtered as nerves started to creep into my thoughts, cooling the heat he was stoking inside, “how?”
He leaned in and sealed his lips over mine, stealing the confused words from my tongue. “However you’ll have me.” Kissing my lips, his breath was hot and heady against my fevered skin. “There are so many ways I want to make you feel good.” His hands smoothed down my body, learning it, molding it, with his every touch. “All you need to do is tell me which ones you want.” I groaned as my body arched up to meet him, to stroke him back, needing more.
But, when his hands jerked, I froze. Choking on icy shame, I forced the still cloth-like bits of me to untangle their fiercely un-fabric-like grip from his fingers. “I-I’m sorry.”
He kissed me again, until my eyes fluttered shut and my mouth forgot how to form words. “You’ve nothing to apologize for; I was just surprised.” He licked into my mouth, his tongue tasting me, consuming me, in a way I’d never known before. “I love it when you touch me. Wherever. However.” He pressed his hand against my belly, letting it sink into my giving flesh, letting me envelop him. Letting himself get lost within me. He let out a low, hungry growl. “Look how much you want it. How much you need it.”
And I did. My life before him had been all about consuming, taking everything I wanted and making it part of myself, feeding off it. And, while I wanted that — needed that — with Rhett, I wanted to give to him too. I wanted him to take me too. To feed each other until there wasn’t a part of me that wasn’t part of him, part of us.
His hand slid lower, playing within the forgiving folds of my form. It shouldn’t have felt so good. I didn’t feel pleasure the way humans did, yet my body heated, writhed, craved, under his reverently curious attention, drawing him deeper into the sea of desire I was already drowning in. He leaned down so we could swallow each other’s heady sighs as he caressed my flesh, pushing deep with fingers fumbling with the force of his hunger. “I need you too, Mim; tell me how I can have you.” Mumbled, half-formed pleas trembled along my strained throat. His tongue laved, hot and wet, along that taut column as if he could taste my cries. “Do you want me to take you?” He nipped at the skin stretched sensitively thin. “Or do you want to be the one who takes?”
I didn’t know. I’d never done this. I pulled his face to mine and pressed a helpless sound to his lips. “I need you.” That was all I knew for certain. “All of you.” Everything he could give me. Anything I could get.
He simply nodded before reaching for his trousers, yanking them down with clumsy but determined hands. I gasped in wonder as his cock sprung free, jutting insistently against me, hot and heavy, hard yet so satiny soft. I rubbed myself against him, reveling in the sensation.
His hands gripped me tighter, to plead for mercy or to pull me closer, I wasn’t sure. “Let me in, Mim.” His voice sounded ruined as his body all but shook with tension. “Please.”
So I did. On a sigh so relieved it bordered on pain, I let myself go. My form relaxed, released, welcoming him in. We shared a sweet, harmonious moan as his hard, unyielding body sunk deep and sure into my soft, quivering give. I watched in awe as his eyes rolled back and his cheeks flushed while he lost himself within me with each wild, reckless thrust. “Mim.” My name became a prayer, a spell he cast on us both. “Mim.”
“Rhett.” I met him, move for move, each sensuous stroke making my flesh swell and stretch for more. On instinct, my body reached for him, finding symmetry in him as it sought for stimulation. “I need you.” My brave adventurer. My fevered flesh lengthened, pushing and prodding against his, seeking any give that could match my own. He let out a keening cry as I found it, pressing against his hole. “Rhett, may I?”
“Mim,” he groaned as he ground his body down hard onto mine. “God, yes, more.” He bit his lip as he took me inside himself. “How can this be more than I ever knew existed and still not enough?” Our tangled bodies moved to a frantic beat only we knew, leaving us able to do nothing more than cling to each other. This world of his, that had felt too wide and wild, condensed — collapsed under the unrelenting desire consuming us both. Every thrust filled me even as I filled him, creating a friction so sweet I wasn’t sure I’d survive it.
Just as I was sure I couldn’t take anymore, I felt Rhett’s body stutter. His back bowed tight, even as the rest of him shuddered limply. A guttural groan tore from his throat as I felt his arousal rush hot and thick from him, into me. My inhuman body felt it, tasted it, devoured every sticky drop. Took every damned bit he gave me and made it my own, let it fill and feed me until I swore, even after a lifetime of consumption, I’d never felt so full.
Sated — for maybe the first time ever — I let myself slip, slow and languidly slaked, from him. My body pooled and poured itself beside him, coalescing into whatever form it chose to take. I liked limbs; they helped me hold onto him. Lazily, I looked at the way veins of gold and jewel-toned glints ran over my marbled arm as it stretched over his still heaving chest. Wherever my flesh met his, the color seemed to melt into his match, my mimicry making it hard to tell where he ended and I began.
He stroked along the pliant limb, leaving Rhett-tinted trails along my silken skin. He sighed, sounding sleepy and so very pleased. His gaze caressed me, lingered over the way my mobile body molded itself to his, before pressing a kiss against my temple and smiled down at me. At the most me I’d ever felt in my life. “So beautiful.”
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